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'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 




'TWIXT LAND 



\ 



\ 



lANQ, SE^ 



y 



By JOSEPH CONRAD 



Life is a tragic foUy 
Let us laugh and he jolly 
Away with melancholy 
Bring me a branch of hoUy 
Life is a tragic folly 

A. Symons. 





Garden City New York 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1914 



Xi^lU'Q.- 17-7 



Copyright, 1012 
By Doubleday, Page & Company 




:xT^. 



;:.A, 2-v rj^'. j 



TO 

CAPTAIN C. M. HARRIS 

LATE MASTER AND OWNER 

OF THE 

ABABT MAID: ARCHIPELAGO TRADER 

IN MEMORY OF THOSE 

OLD DAYS OF ADVENTXTRE 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Smile of Fortune 9 

The Secret Sharer •. . . 113 

Fbeya op the Seven Isllb 179 



) 

» 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 
HAKBOUR 8T0ET 




A SMILE OV FORTUNE 
HABBOUK STOBT 




A SMILE OF FOETUNE 

EVER since the sun rose I had been looking 
ahead. The ship glided gently in smooth water. 
After a sixty days' passage I was anxious to make my 
landfall, a fertile and beautiful island of the tropics. 
The more enthusiastic of its inhabitants delight in 
describing it as^the " Pearl of the Ocean." Well, let us 
call it the " Pearl." It's a good name. A pearl dis- 
tilling much sweetness upon the world. 

This is only a way of telling you that first-rate 
sugar-cane is grown there. All the population of the 
Pearl lives for it and by it. Sugar is their daily 
bread, as it were. And I was coming to them for a 
cargo of sugar in the hope of the crop having been good 
and of the freights being high. 

Mr. Bums, my chief mate, made out the land first; 

and very soon I became entranced by this blue, 

pinnacled apparition, almost transparent against the 

light of the sky, a mere emanation, the astral body of 

an island risen to greet me from afar. It is a rare 

phenomenon, such a sight of the Pearl at sixty miles 

off. And I wondered half seriously whether it was a 

good omen, whether what would meet me in that 

island would be as luckily exceptional as this beautiful, 

dreamlike vision so very few seamen have been 

privileged to behold. 

9 



\ 



10 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

But horrid thoughts of business interfered with my 
enjoyment of an accomplished passage. I was anxious 
for success and I wished, too, to^do justice to the flat- 
tering latitude of my owners' instructions contained in 
one noble phrase : " We leave it to you to do the best 
you can with the ship." . . . All the world being thus 
given me for a stage, my abilities appeared to me no 
bigger than a pinhead. 

Meantime the wind dropped, and Mr. Bums began 
to make disagreeable remarks about my usual bad luck. 
I believe it was his devotion for me wtich made him 
critically outspoken on every occasion. All the same, 
I would not have put up with his humours if it had not 
been my lot at one time to nurse him through a desperate 
illness at sea. After snatching him out of the jaws of 
death, so to speak, it would have been absurd to throw 
away such an eflScient officer. But sometimes I wished 
he would dismiss himself. 

We were late in closing in with the land, and had to 
anchor outside the harbour till next day. An unpleas- 
ant and unrestful night followed. In this roadstead, 
strange to us both. Bums and I remained on deck almost 
all the time. Clouds swirled down the porphyry crags 
under which we lay. The rising wind made a great 
bullying noise amongst the naked spars, with interludes 
of sad moaning. I remarked that we had been in luck 
to fetch the anchorage before dark. It would have been 
a nasty, anxious night to hang off a harbour under can- 
vas. But my chief mate was uncompromising in his 
attitude. 



A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 11 

*' Liick^ you call it, sir ! Ay — our usual luck. The 
rt of luck to thank God it's no worse ! '' 
And so he fretted through the dark hours, while I 
ew on my fund of philosophy. Ah, but it was an 
asperating, weary, endless night, to be lying at anchor 
)8e under that black coast ! The agitated water made 
arling sounds all round the ship. At times a wild 
st of wind out of a gully high up on the cliffs struck 
. our rigging a harsh and plaintive note like the wail 
a forsaken souL 



r half-past seven in the morning, the ship being 
en inside the harbour at last and moored within a 
ig stone's-throw from the quay, my stock of philosophy 
IS nearly exhausted. I was dressing hurriedly in my 
bin when the steward came tripping in with a mom- 
g suit over his arm. 

Hungry, tired, and depressed, with my head engaged 
side a white shirt irritatingly stuck together by too 
iich starch, I desired him peevishly to " heave round 
th that breakfast." I wanted to get ashore as soon 
possible. 

" Yes, sir. Eeady at eight, sir. There's a gentle- 
an from the shore waiting to speak to you, sir." 
This statement was curiously slurred over. I dragged 
e shirt violently over my head and emerged staring. 
" So early! " I cried " Who's he ? What does he 



i 



12 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

On coming in from sea one has to pick up the coiidi- 
tions of an utterly unrelated existence. Every little 
event at first has the peculiar emphasis of novelty. I 
was greatly surprised by that early caller ; but there was 
no reason for my steward to look so particularly foolish. 

" Didn't you ask for the name ? " I inquired in 8 
stern tone. 

" His name's Jacobus, I believe," he mumbled 
shamefacedly. 

" Mr. Jacobus ! " I exclaimed loudly, more surprised 
than ever, but with a total change of feeling. " Why ! 
couldn't you say so at once ? " 

But the fellow had scuttled out of my room. 
Through the momentarily opened door I had a glimpse 
of a tall, stout man standing in the cuddy by the table 
on which the cloth was already laid ; a " harbour " 
tablecloth, stainless and dazzlingly white. So far 
good. 

I shouted courteously through the closed door, that 
I was dressing and would be with him in a moment 
In return the assurance that there was no hurry reached 
me in the visitor's deep, quiet undertone. His time 
was my own. He dared say I would give him a cup 
of coffee presently. 

" I am afraid you will have a poor breakfast," I 
cried apologetically. "We have been sixty-one days 
at sea, you know." 

A quiet little laugh, with a " That'll be all right, 
Captain," was his answer. All this, words, intonation, ' 
the glimpsed attitude of the man in the cuddy,, bad 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 13 

an "unexpected character, a something friendly in it — 
propitiatory. And my surprise was not diminished 
thereby. What did this call mean? Was it the sign 
of some dark design against my commercial inno- 
cence? 

Ah I These commercial interests — spoiling the finest 
life under the sun. Why must the sea be used for 
trade — and for war as well ? Why kill and traffic on 
it, pursuing selfish aims of no great importance after 
all? It would have been so much nicer just to sail 
about with here and there a port and a bit of land to 
stretch one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change 
of cooking for a while. But, living in a world more 
or less homicidal and desperately mercantile, it was 
plainly my duty to make the best of its opportunities. 

My owners' letter had left it to me, as I have said 
before, to do my best for the ship, according to my 
own judgment. But it contained also a postscript 
worded somewhat as follows: 

** Without meaning to interfere with your liberty of 
action we are writing by the outgoing mail to some of 
our business friends there who may be of assistance 
to you. We desire you particularly to call on Mr. 
Jacobus, a prominent merchant and charterer. Should 
you hit it off with him he may l^e able to put you in 
the way of profitable employment for the ship." 

Hit it off! Here was the prominent creature abso- 
lutely on board asking for the favour of a cup of 
coffee! And life not being a fairy-tale the improba- 
bility of the event almost shocked me. Had I dis- 



14 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

covered an enchanted nook of the earth where wealthy 
merchants rush fasting on board ships before they an 
fairly moored ? Warthis white ma|e or merely 80« 
black trick of trade ? I came in the end (while making 
the bow of my tie) to suspect that perhaps I did not 
get the name right. I had been thinking of the 
prominent Mr. Jacobus pretty frequently during IIm J 
passage and my hearing might have been deceived hj \\ 
some remote similarity of sound. • • • The steward 
might have said Antrobus — or maybe Jackson. 

But coming out of my stateroom with an intflf* 
rogative "Mr. Jacobus?" I was met by a quiet 
" Yes," uttered with a gentle smile. The " yes '* wm 
rather perfunctory. He did not seem to make mvA 
of the fact that he was Mr. Jacobus. I took stock ol 
a big, pale face, hair thin on the top, whiskers also 
thin, of a faded nondescript colour, heavy eyelids. 
The thick, smooth lips in repose looked as if glued 
together. The smile was faint. A heavy, tranquil 
man. I named my two officers, who just then came 
down to breakfast; but why Mr. Bums's silent de- 
meanour should suggest suppressed indignation I could 
not understand. 

While we were taking our seats round the table 
some disconnected words of an altercation going on in 
the companionway reached my ear. A stranger appar- 
ently wanted to come down to interview me, and the 
steward was opposing him. 

"You can't see him." 

" Why can't I ? " 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 15 

'* The Captain is at breakfast, I tell you. He'll be 
going on shore presently, and you can speak to him on 
deck.'' 

" That's not fair. You let '' 

" I've had nothing to do with that." 

" Oh, yes, you have. Everybody ought to have the 
same chance. Tou let that fellow " 

The rest I lost. The person having been repulsed 
successfully, the steward came down. I can't say he 
looked flushed — he was a mulatto — but he looked 
flustered. After putting the dishes on the table he 
remained by the sideboard with that lackadaisical air 
of indifference he used to assume when he had done 
something too clever by half and was afraid of getting 
into a scrape over it. The contemptuous expression of 
Mr. Bnms's face as he looked from him to me was 
really extraordinary. I couldn't imagine what new 
bee had stung the mate now. 

The Captain being silent, nobody else cared to speak, 
as is the way in ships. And I was saying nothing 
simply because I had be^i made dumb by the splendour 
of the entertainment. I had expected the usual sea- 
breakfast, whereas I beheld spread before us a veritable 
feast of shore provisions: eggs, sausages, butter which 
plainly did not come from a Danish tin, cutlets, and 
even a dish of potatoes. It was three weeks since I 
had seen a real, live potato. I contemplated them with 
interest, and Mr. Jacobus disclosed himself as a man 
of human, homely sympathies, and something of a 
thought-reader. 



16 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" Try them, Captain," he encouraged me in » 
friendly undertone. " They are excellent." 

" They look that," I admitted. " Grown on the 
island, I suppose." 

" Oh, no, imported. Those grown here would be 
more expensive." 

I was grieved at the ineptitude of the conversation 
Were these the topics for a prominent and weal% 
merchant to discuss? I thought the simplicity wifli 
which he made himself at home rather attractive; W 
what is one to talk about to a man who comes on oiM 
suddenly, after sixty-one days at sea, out of a total^ 
unknown little town in an island one has never sea 
before ? What were (besides sugar) the interests of thii 
crumb of the earth, its gossip, its topics of conversatimil 
To draw him on business at once would have been al 
most indecent — or even worse : impolitic. All I could 
do at the moment was to keep on in the old groove. 

"Are the provisions generally dear here?" I asked, 
fretting inwardly at my inanity. 

" I wouldn't say that," he answered placidly, witl 
that appearance of saving his breath his restrained 
manner of speaking suggested. 

He would not be more explicit, yet he did not evade 
the subject. Eyeing the table in a spirit of complete 
abstemiousness (he wouldn't let me help him to anj 
eatables) he went into details of supply. The beef w« 
for the most part imported from Madagascar; muttmi 
of course was rare and somewhat expensive, but gpoi 
goat's flesh 



A SMILE OF FOKTTIKE 17 

**Are these goat's cutlets?" I exclaimed hastily, 
pointing at one of the dishes. 

Posed sentimentally by the sideboard, the steward 
gave a start. 

** Lor*, no, sir ! It's real mutton ! " 

Mr. Bums got through his breakfast impatiently, as 
if exasperated by being made a party to some mon- 
itrons foolishness, muttered a curt excuse, and went on 
leek. Shortly afterwards the second mate took his 
mooth red countenance out of the cabin. With the 
ippetite of a schoolboy, and after two months of sea- 
iire, he appreciated the generous spread. But I did 
lot. It smacked of extravagance. AU the same, it 
was a remarkable feat to have produced it so quickly, 
ind I congratulated the steward on his smartness in a 
KHnewhat ominous tone. He gave me a deprecatory 
mile and, in a way I didn't know what to make of, 
blinked his fine dark eyes in the direction of the guest. 

The latter asked under his breath for another cup 
of coffee> and nibbled ascetically at a piece of very 
hard ship's biscuit. I don't think he consumed a 
square inch in the end; but meantime he gave me, 
casually as it were, a complete account of the sugar 
erop, of the local business houses, of the state of the 
frei^t market All that talk was interspersed with 
hints as to personalities, amounting to veiled warnings, 
hut his pale, fleshy face remained equable, without a 
gleam, as if ignorant of his voice. As you may imagine 
I opened my ears very wide. Every word was precious. 
My ideas as to the value of business friendship were 



18 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

being favourably modified. He gave me the names of 
all the disponible ships together with their tonnage and 
the names of their commanders. From that^ wbidi 
was still commercial information, he condescended to 
mere harbour gossip. The Hilda had unaccountaUy 
lost her figurehead in the Bay of Bengal, and her 
captain was greatly affected by this. He and the ship 
had been getting on in years together and the old 
gentleman imagined this strange event to be the ftnO' 
runner of his own early dissolution. The Stella had 
experienced awful weather off the Cape — had iier 
decks swept, and the chief oflScer washed overboaid. 
And only a few hours before reaching port the baby 

died. Poor Captain H and his wife were terriWy \\ 

cut up. If they had only been able to bring it into; 
port alive it could have been probably saved; but the 
wind failed them for the last week or so, light breezes, 
and • . • the baby was going to be buried this afte^ 
noon. He supposed I would attend 

" Do you think I ought to ? " I asked, shrinkingly. 

He thought so, decidedly. It would be greatly 
appreciated. All the captains in the harbour were 
going to attend. Poor Mrs. H was quite pros- 
trated. Pretty hard on H altogether. 

"And you, Captain — you are not married I 
suppose ? " 

" No, I am not married,'' I said. " Neither ma^ 
ried nor even engaged." 

Mentally I thanked my stars; and while he smiled 
in a musing, dreamy fashion, I expressed my ac- 



A SMILE or FOETUNE 19 

mowledgmenta for his visit and for the interesting 
business information he had been good enough to im- 
part to me. But I said nothing of my wonder thereat. 

*^ Of course, I would have made a point of calling 
>ii you in a day or two/' I concluded. 

He raised his eyelids distinctly at me, and somehow 
managed to look rather more sleepy than before. 

^* In accordance with my owners' instructions," I 
explained. " You have had their letter, of course ? " 

By that time he had raised his eyebrows too but 
without any particular emotion. On the contrary he 
struck me then as absolutely imperturbable. 

*' Oh ! Tou must be thinking of my brother.'' 

It was for me, then, to say " Oh ! " But I hope 
that no more than civil surprise appeared in my voice 
when I asked him to what, then, I owed the pleasure. * 
• . • He was reaching for an inside pocket leisurely. 

''My brother's a very different person. But I am 
well known in this part of the world. You've probably 
heard '' 

I took a card he extended to me. A thick business 
card, as I lived! Alfred Jacobus — the other was 
Ernest — dealer in every description of ship's stores! 
Provisions salt and fresh, oils, paints, rope, canvas, 
etc., etc Ships in harbour victualled by contract on 
moderate terms 

'' I've never heard of you," I said brusquely. 

His low-pitched assurance did not abandon him. 

''You will be very well satisfied," he breathed out 
quietly. 



20 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

I was not placated. I had the sense of having been 
circumvented somehow. Yet I had deceived myself— 
if there was any deception. But the confoimded dieek 
of inviting himself to breakfast was enough to deodw 
any one. And the thought struck me: Why I The 
fellow had provided all these eatables himself in the 
way of business. I said: 

" You must have got up mighty early this monh 
mg." 

He admitted with simplicity that he was on the quay 
before six o'clock waiting for my ship to come in, H» 
gave me the impression that it would be impossible to 
get rid of him now. 

" If you think we are going to live on that scale,** 
I said, looking at the table with an irritated eye, " you 
are jolly well mistaken." 

" You'll find it all right, Captain. I quite llnde^ 
stand." 

Nothing could disturb his equanimity. I felt dis- 
satisfied, but I could not very well fly out at him. He 
had told me many useful things — and besides he was 
the brother of that wealthy merchant. That seemed 
queer enough. 

I rose and told him curtly that I must now go 
ashore. At once he offered the use of his boat for all 
the time of my stay in port. 

" I only make a nominal charge," he continued 
equably. " My man remains all day at the landing- 
steps. You have only to blow a whistle when you 
want the boat." 



A SMILE OF rOETUNE 21 

And, standing aside at every doorway to let me go 
through first, he carried me off in his custody after all. 
Ab we crossed the quarter-deck two shabby individuals 
stepped forward and in mournful silence offered me 
business cards which I took from them without a word 
under his heavy eye. It was a useless and gloomy 
ceremony. They were the touts of the other ship- 
chandlers, and he, placid at my back, ignored their 
existence. 

We parted on the quay, after he had expressed qui- 
[ etly the hope of seeing me often " at the store." He 
1 had a smoking-room for captains there, with newspa- 
» pers and a box of " rather decent cigars." I left him 
L very unceremoniously. 

I My consignees received me with the usual business 

! beartiness, but their account of the state of the f reight- 

i market was by no means so favourable as the talk of 

L the wrong Jacobus had led me to expect. Naturally I 

became inclined now to put my trust in his version, 

rather. As I closed the door of the private oflBce be- 

I hind me I thought to myself: " H'm, A lot of lies. 

I Commercial diplomacy. That's the sort of thing a 

man coming from sea has got to expect. They would 

try to charter the ship under the market rate." 

■^ In the big, outer room, full of desks, the chief clerk, 

! a tall, lean, shaved person in immaculate white clothes 

f and with a shiny, closely-cropped black head on which 

gilvery gleams came and went, rose from his place and 

^ detained me affably. Anything they could do for me, 

they would be most happy. Was I likely to call again 

f 

f 



22 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

in the afternoon ? What ? Gk)ing to a funeral ? (Mi, 
yes, poor Captain H . Jp 

He pulled a long, sympathetic face for a momeot) |q 
then, dismissing from this workaday world the baby, 
which had got ill in a tempest and had died from too 
much calm at sea, he asked me with a dental, shai^- 
like smile — if sharks had false teeth — whether I had 
yet made my little arrangements for the ship's stay in 
port 

"Yes, with Jacobus,^' I answered carelessly. "I 
understand he's the brother of Mr. Ernest Jacobus to 
whom I have an introduction from my owners." 

I was not sorry to let him know I was not altogether 
helpless in the hands of his firm. He screwed his thin 
lips dubiously. 

" Why," I cried, " isn't he the brother? " 

" Oh, yes. . . . They haven't spoken to each other 
for eighteen years," he added impressively after a 
pause. 

" Indeed ! What's the quarrel about ? " 

" Oh, nothing ! Nothing that one would care to 
mention," he protested primly. "He's got quite a 
large business. The best ship-chandler here, without a 
doubt. Business is all very well, but there is such 
a thing as personal character, too, isn't there? Gteod- 
moming. Captain." 

He went away mincingly to his desk. He amused 
me. He resembled an old maid, a comimercial old 
maid, shocked by some impropriety. Was it a com- 
mercial impropriety? Commercial impropriety is a 



A SMILE or FOKTUNE 23 

erious matter, for it aims at one's pocket. Or was he 
mly a purist in conduct who disapproved of Jacobus 
Loing his own touting? It was certainly undignified. 
[ -wondered how the merchant brother liked it. But 
Jien different countries, different customs. In a 
jomnnmity so isolated and so exclusively "trading" 
KX^ial standards have their own scala 



II 

[ WOTTLD have gladly dispensed with the mournful 
opportunity of becoming acquainted by sight with all 
my fellow-captains at once. However I found my way 
to the cemetery. We made a considerable group of 
bareheaded men in sombre garments. I noticed that 
those of our company most approaching to the now 
obsolete sea-dog type were the most moved — perhaps 
because they had less "manner" than the new gen- 
eration. The old sea-dog, away from his natural ele- 
ment, was a simple and sentimental animal. I noticed 
one — he was facing me across the grave — who was 
dropping tears. They trickled down his weather- 
beaten face like drops of rain on an old rugged wall. 
I learned afterwards that he was looked upon as the 
terror of sailors, a hard man; that he had never had 
wife or chick of his own, and that, engaged from his 
tenderest years in deep-sea voyages, he knew women 
and children merely by sight. 

Perhaps he was dropping those tears over his lost 
opportunities, from sheer envy of paternity and in 



i 



24 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

strange jealousy of a sorrow which he could never 
know. Man, and even the sea-man, is a capricious an- 
imal, the creature and the victim of lost opportunities. 
But he made me feel ashamed of my callousness. I 
had no tears. 

I listened with horribly critical detachment to that 
service I had had to read myself, once or twice, over 
childlike men who had died at sea. The words of hope 
and defiance, the winged words so inspiring in the free 
immensity of water and sky, seemed to fall wearily 
into the little grave. What was the use of asking 
Death where her sting was, before that small, dark 
hole in the ground? And then my thoughts escaped 
me altogether — away into matters of life — and no 
very high matters at that — ships, freights, business. 
In the instability of his emotions man resembles 
deplorably a monkey. I was disgusted with my 
thoughts — and I thought : Shall I be able to get a 
charter soon? Time's money. . . . Will that Ja- 
cobus really put good business in my way? ... I 
must go and see him in a day or two. 

Don't imagine that I pursued these thoughts vrith 
any precision. They pursued me rather: vague, shad- 
owy, restless, shamefaced. Theirs was a callous, 
abominable, almost revolting, pertinacity. And it was 
the presence of that pertinacious ship-chandler whict 
had started them. He stood mournfully amongst our 
little band of men from the sea, and I was angry at 
his presence, which, suggesting his brother the mer- 
chant, had caused me to become outrageous to myself. 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 25 

For indeed I had preserved some decency of feeling. 
[t was only the mind which 

It was over at last. The poor father — a man of 
forty with black, bushy side-whiskers and a pathetic 
gash on his freshly-shaved chin — thanked us all, 
swallowing his tears. But for some reason, either be- 
cause I lingered at the gate of the cemetery being 
somewhat hazy as to my way back, or because I was 
the youngest, or ascribing my moodiness caused by re- 
morse to some more worthy ^nd appropriate sentiment, 
or simply because I was even more of a stranger to 
him than the others — he singled me out. Keeping at 
my side, he renewed his thanks, which I listened to in 
a gloomy, conscience-stricken silence. Suddenly he 
slipped one hand under my arm and waved the other 
after a tall, stout figure walking away by itself down 
a street in a flutter of thin, grey garments: 

" That's a good fellow — a real good fellow '' — he 
swallowed down a belated sob — " this Jacobus.^' 

And he told me in a low voice that Jacobus was 
the first man to board his ship on arrival, and, learn- 
ing of their misfortune, had taken charge of every- 
thing, volunteered to attend to all routine business, 
carried off the ship's papers on shore, arranged for the 
funeral 

" A good fellow. I was knocked over. I had been 
boking at my wife for ten days. And helpless. Just 
you think of that 1 The dear little chap died the very 
day we made the land. How I managed to take the 
ship in God alone knows! I couldn't see anything; 



26 'TWIXT LA:ND AND SEA 

I couldn't apeak; I couldn't. . . . You've heard, 
perhaps, that we loet our mate overboard on the pas- 
sage? There was no one to do it for me. And the 
poor woman nearly crazy down below there all alone 
with the . . . By the Lord! It isn't fair." 

We walked in silence together. I did not know how 
to part from him. On the way he let go my arm and 
struck fiercely his fist into the palm of his other hand. 

" By God, it isn't fair ! " he cried again. " Don't 
you ever marry unless you can chuck the sea first. . . « 
It isn't fair," 

I had no intention to " chuck the sea," and when Be 
left me to go aboard his ship I felt convinced that I 
would never marry. While I was waiting at the step* 
for Jacobus's boatman, who had gone off somewhere, 
the captain of the Hilda joined me, a slender silk um- 
brella in his hand and the sharp points of his archaic, 
Gladfitonian shirt-collar framing a small, clean- 
shaved, ruddy face. It was wonderfully fresh for his 
age, beautifully modelled and lit up by remarkably 
clear blue eyes. A lot of white hair, glossy like spun 
glass, curled upwards slightly under the brim of his 
valuable, ancient, panama hat with a broad black rib- 
bon. In the aspect of that vivacious, neat, little old 
man there was something quaintly angelic and also 
boyish. 

He accosted me as though he had been in the habit 
of seeing me every day of bis life from my earliest 
childhood, with a whimsical remark on the appearance 
' of a stout negro woman who was sitting upon a 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 27 

lear the edge of the quay. Presently he observed 
uniably that I had a very pretty little barque. 

I returned this civil speech by saying readily : 

*' Not so pretty as the Hilda/^ 

At once the comers of his clear-cut, sensitive mouth 
dropped dismally. 

** Oh, dear ! I can hardly bear to look at her now." 

Did I know, he asked anxiously, that he had lost 
the figurehead of his ship; a woman in a blue tunic 
edged with gold, the face perhaps not so very, very 
pretty, but her bare white arms beautifully shaped and 
extended as if she were swimming? Did I? Who 
would have expected such a thing! . . . After twenty 
years too! 

Nobody could have guessed from his tone that the 
woman was made of wood; his trembling voice, his 
agitated manner gave to his lamentations a ludicrously 
scandalous flavour. . . . Disappeared at night — a 
clear fine night with just a slight swell — in the gulf 
of BengaL Went off without a splash; no one in the 
diip could tell why, how, at what hour — after twenty 
years last October. . . . Did I ever hear! . . . 

I assured him sympathetically that I had never 
heard — and he became very doleful. This meant no 
good he was sure. There was something in it which 
looked like a warning. But when I remarked that 
surely another figure of a woman could be procured 
I found myself being soundly rated for my levity. 
The old boy flushed pink under his clear tan as if I 
had proposed something improper. One could replace 



28 'TWIXT LAiro AND SEA 

masts, I was told, or a lost rudder — any working par 
of a ship ; but where was the use of sticking up a ne^ 
figurehead? What satisfaction? How could one car 
for it? It was as easy to see that I had never be© 
shipmates with a figurehead for over twenty years. 

" A new figurehead ! " he scolded in unquenchable iB 
dignation. "Why! IVe been a widower now fo: 
eight-and-twenty years come next May and I would jus 
as soon think of getting a new wife. You're as bad a 
that fellow Jacobus." 

I was highly amused. 

"What has Jacobus done? Did he want you t 
marry again. Captain ?'' I inquired in a deferentia 
tone. But he was launched now and only grinned 
fiercely. 

" Procure — indeed ! He's the sort of chap to pw 
cure you anything you like for a price. I hadn't beei 
moored here for an hour when he got on board and a 
once offered to sell me a figurehead he happens to hav 
in his yard somewhere. He got Smith, my mate, t 
talk to me about it. * Mr. Smith,' says I, * don't yoi 
know me better than that ? Am I the sort that woul< 
pick up with another man's cast-off figurehead ? ' An< 
after all these years too 1 The way some of you younj 
fellows talk ^" 

I affected great compunction, and as I stepped int< 
the boat I said soberly: 

" Then I see nothing for it but to fit in a neat fiddle 
head — perhaps. You know, carved scrollwork, nicely 
gilt.'' 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 29 

He became very dejected after his outburst. 

" Yes. Scrollwork. Maybe. Jacobus hinted at 
that too. He's never at a loss when there's any money 
to be extracted from a sailorman. He would make me 
pay through the nose for that carving. A gilt fiddle- 
head did you say — eh? I dare say it would do for 
you. You young fellows don't seem to have any feel- 
ing for what's proper." 

He made a convulsive gesture with his right arm. 

" Never mind. Nothing, can make much difference. 
I would just as soon let the old thing go about the 
world with a bare cutwater," he cried sadly. Then as 
the boat got away from the steps he raised his voice 
on the edge of the quay with comical animosity: 
• " I would ! If only to spite that figurehead- 
procuring bloodsucker. I am an old bird here and 
don't you forget it. Come and see me on board some 
day I" 

I spent my first evening in port quietly in my ship's 
cuddy; and glad enough was I to think that the shore 
life which strikes one as so prettily complex, discordant, 
and so full of new faces on first coming from sea, 
could be kept off for a few hours longer. I was how- 
ever fated to hear the Jacobus note once more before 
I slept. 

Mr. Bums had gone ashore after the evening meal 
to have, as he said, " a look round." As it was quite 
dark when he announced his intention I didn't ask 
him what it was he expected to see. Some time about 
midnight, while sitting with a book in the saloon, I 



30 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

heard cautious movements in the lobby and hailed bin 
by name. 

Bums came in, stick and hat in hand, incredibb 
vulgarised by his smart shore togs, with a jaunty ai 
and an odious twinkle in his eye. Being asked to si 
down he laid his hat and stick on the table and afte: 
we had talked of ship affairs for a little while : 

" l\e been hearing pretty tales on shore about tha 
ship-chandler fellow who snatched the job from yoi 
so neatly, sir." 

I remonstrated with my late patient for his mannei 
of expressing himself. But he only tossed his heac 
disdainfully. A pretty dodge indeed: boarding i 
strange ship with breakfast in two baskets for all handi 
and calmly inviting himself to the captain's table 
Never heard of anything so crafty and so impudent ii 
his life. 

I found myself defending Jacobus's unusual meth 
ods. 

" He's the brother of one of the wealthiest merchant 
in the port." The mate's eyes fairly snapped greei 
sparks. 

" His grand brother hasn't spoken to him for eight 
een or twenty years," he declared triumphantly. " S< 
there ! " 

" I know all about that," I interrupted loftily. 

" Do you, sir ? H'm ! " His mind was still run 
ning on the ethics of commercial competition. " '. 
don't like to see your good nature taken advantage of 
He's bribed that steward of ours with a five-rupee not 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 31 

to let him come down — or ten for that matter. He 
donH care. He will shove that and more into the bill 
presently/' 

" Is that one of the tales you have heard ashore ? " 
I asked. 

He assured me that his own sense could tell him 
that much. No ; what he had heard on shore was that 
no respectable person in the whole town would come 
near Jacobus. He lived in a large old-fashioned house 
in one of the quiet streets with a big garden. After 
telling me this Bums put on a mysterious air. " He 
keeps a girl shut up there who, they say " 

" I suppose youVe heard all this gossip in some emi- 
nently respectable place ? " I snapped at him in a most 
sarcastic tone. 

The shaft told, because Mr. Burns, like many other 
disagreeable people, was very sensitive himself. He 
remained as if thunderstruck, with his mouth open for 
some further communication, but I did not give him 
the chance. " And, anyhow, what the deuce do 1 
care V^ I added, retiring into my room. 

And this was a natural thing to say. Yet somehow 
I was not indifferent. I admit it is absurd to be 
concerned with the morals of one's ship-chandler, if 
ever so well connected ; but his personality had stamped 
itself upon my first day in harbour, in the way you 
know. 

After this initial exploit Jacobus showed himself 
anything but intrusive. He was out in a boat early 
every morning going round the ships he served, and 



32 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

occasionally remaining on board one of them for break- 
fast with the captain. 

As I discovered that this practice was generally ac- 
cepted, I just nodded to him familiarly when one morn- 
ing, on coming out of my room, I found him in the 
cabin. Glancing over the table I saw that his place 
was already laid. He stood awaiting my appearance, 
very bulky and placid, holding a beautiful bunch of 
flowers in his thick hand. He offered them to my 
notice with a faint, sleepy smile. From his own 
garden; had a very fine old garden; picked them him- 
self that morning before going out to business ; thought 
I would like. . . . He turned away. " Steward, can 
you oblige me with some water in a large jar, please." 

I assured him jocularly, as I took my place at the 
table, that he made me feel as if I were a pretty girl, 
and that he mustn't be surprised if I blushed. But 
he was busy arranging his floral tribute at the side- 
board. " Stand it before the Captain's plate, steward, 
please." He made this request in his usual undertone. 

The offering was so pointed that I could do no less 
than to raise it to my nose, and as he sat down noise- 
lessly he breathed out the opinion that a few flowers 
improved notably the appearance of a ship's saloon. 
He wondered why I did not have a shelf fitted all 
round the skylight for flowers in pots to take with me 
to sea. He had a skilled workman able to fit up 
shelves in a day, and he could procure me two or three 
dozen good plants 

The tips of his thick, round fingers rested composedly 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 33 

>ii the edge of the table on each side of his cup of 
joffee. His face remained immovable. Mr. Bums 
wras smiling maliciously to himself. I declared that I 
badn't the slightest intention of turning my skylight 
into a conservatory only to keep the cabin-table in a 
perpetual mess of mould and dead vegetable matter. 

" Eear most beautiful flowers," he insisted with an 
upward glance. " It's no trouble really." 

" Oh, yes, it is. Lots of trouble," I contradicted. 
" And in the end some fool leaves the skylight open 
in a fresh breeze, a flick of salt water gets at them and 
the whole lot is dead in a week." 

Mr. Bums snorted a contemptuous approval. 
Jacobus gave up the subject passively. After a time 
he unglued his thick lips to ask me if I had seen his 
brother yet. I was very curt in my answer. 

" No, not yet." 

*' A very different person," he remarked dreamily 
and got up. His movements were particularly noise- 
less. "Well — thank you, Captain. If anything is' 
not to your liking please mention it to your steward. 
I suppose you will be giving a dinner to the office-clerks 
presently." 

" What for ? " I cried with some warmth. " If I 
were a steady trader to the port I could understand it. 
But a complete stranger! ... I may not turn up 
again here for years. I don't see why I . . . Do you 
mean to say it is customary ? " 

" It will be expected from a man like you," he 
breathed out placidly. " Eight of the principal clerks,. 



34 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

the manager, that's nine, you three gentlemen, that's 
twelve. It needn't be very expensive. If you tell 1 
your steward to give me a day's notice " 

" It will be expected of me ! Why should it be ex- 
pected of me? Is it because I look particularly soft 
— or what ? " 

His immobility struck me as dignified suddenly, his 
imperturbable quality as dangerous. " There's plenty 
of time to think about that," I concluded weakly with 
a gesture that tried to wave him away. But before 
he departed he took time to mention regretfully that 
he had not yet had the pleasure of seeing me at his 
" store " to sample those cigars. He had a parcel of 
six thousand to dispose of, very cheap. 

" I think it would be worth your while to secure 
some," he added with a fat, melancholy smile and left 
the cabin. 

Mr. Bums struck his fist on the table excitedly. 

" Did you ever see such impudence ! He's made up 
his mind to get something out of you one way or an- 
other, sir." . 

At once feeling inclined to defend Jacobus, I ob- 
served philosophically that all this was business, I sup- 
posed. But my absurd mate, muttering broken 
disjointed sentences, such as : "I cannot bear 1 . . . 
Mark my words! . . ." and so on, flung out of the 
cabin. If I hadn't nursed him through that deadly 
fever I wouldn't have suffered such manners for a 
single day. 



A SMILE or FOETUNE 85 

III 

Jacobus having put me in mind of his wealthy brother 
I concluded I would pay that business call at once. 
I had by that time heard a little more of him. He was 
a member of the Council, where he made himself ob- 
jectionable to the authorities. He exercised a consid- 
erable influence on public opinion. Lots of people 
owed him money. He was an importer on a great 
scale of all sorts of goods. Eor instance, the whole 
supply of bags for sugar was practically in his hands. 
This last fact I did not learn till afterwards. The 
general impression conveyed to me was that of a local 
personage. He was a bachelor and gave weekly card- 
parties in his house out of town, which were attended 
by the best people in the colony. 

The greater, then, was my surprise to discover his 
oflSce in shabby surroundings, quite away from the 
business quarter, amongst a lot of hovels. Guided by 
a black board with white lettering, I climbed a narrow 
wooden staircase and entered a room with a bare floor 
of planks littered with bits of brown paper and wisps 
of packing straw. A great number of what looked 
like wine-cases were piled up against one of the walls. 
A lanky, inky, light-yellow, mulatto youth, miserably 
long-necked and generally recalling a sick chicken, got 
off a three-legged stool behind a cheap deal desk and 
faced me as if gone dumb with fright. I had some 
diflSculty in persuading him to take in my name, 
though I could not get from him the nature of his 



U 'TWiXT LA^TD A5I> SEA. 

ohjection* He did it at last witiL aiL ftLnofit agoniaed 
relnctance which ceased to be nLystenoos to me wben 
r heard him being swocel at Tnenafrngly with saTage^ 
imppreflsed growls, iii&i audibly cnfiGed and finaDy 
kicked out witiiOTit smj concealmeait whatever; because 
he came back fiying head forsnost throngb die door 
with a stifled shriek. 

To say I was startled would not fe^reaa iL I re- 
mained stilly like a man. lost in a dream. Clapping 
both hi» hands to that part of his frail anatomj whidi 
bad received the shock, the poor wretch said to me 
simply: 

** Will yon go in, please.'^ 

His lamentable self-possession was wonderfnl; but 
it did not do away with the incredibflity of the ex- 
perience. A preposterous notion that I had seen this 
boy somewhere before, a thing obviously impossible, 
was like a delicate finishing touch of weirdness added 
to a scene fit to raise doubts as to one's sanity. I stared 
anxiously about me like an awakened somnambulist 

" I say," I cried loudly, " there isn't a mistake^ is 
there ? This is Mr. Jacobus's office." 

The boy gazed at me with a pained expression- 
and Hr>mehow so familiar ! A voice within growled of- 
fcjTiHivfjly: 

'^ Come in, come in, since you are there. ... I 
didn't know." 

r croBBcd the outer room as one approaches the den 
of mmo unknown wild beast; with intrepidity but in 
Hoino excitement. Only no wild beast that ever lived 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 37 

would rouse one's indignation; the power to do that 
belongs to the odiousness of the human brute. And I 
was very indignant,,whieh did not prevent me from be- 
ing at once struck by the extraordinary resemblance of 
the two brothers. 

This one was dark instead of being fair like the 
other; but he was as big. He was without his coat 
and waistcoat; he had been doubtless snoozing in the 
rocking-chair which stood in a comer furthest from 
the window. Above the great bulk of his crumpled 
white shirt, buttoned with three diamond studs, his 
round face looked swarthy. It was moist; his brown 
moustache himg limp and ragged. He pushed a com- 
mon, cane-bottomed chair towards me with his foot. 

" Sit down." 

I glanced at it casually, then, turning my indignant 
eyes full upon him, I declared in precise and incisive 
tones that I had called in obedience to my owners' in- 
structions. 

" Oh 1 Yes. H'm ! I didn't understand what that 
fool was saying. . . . But never mind 1 It will teach 
the scoundrel to disturb me at this time of the day," 
he added, grinning at me with savage cynicism. 

I looked at my watch. It was past three o'clock — 
quite the full swing of afternoon office work in the 
port He snarled imperiously : " Sit down. Captain." 

I acknowledged the gracious invitation by saying 
deliberately: 

" I can listen to all you may have to say without 
sitting down." 



38 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

Emitting a loud and vehement " Pshaw 1 " he glared 
for a momept, very roimd-eyed and fierce. It was like 
a gigantic tomcat spitting at one suddenly. " Look at 
him ! . . . What do you fancy yourself to be ? What 
did you come here for? If you won't sit down and 
talk business you had better go to the devil." 

" I don't know him personally," I said, " But after 
this I wouldn't mind calling on him. It would be 
refreshing to meet a gentleman." 

He followed me, growling behind my back : 

" The impudence ! I've a good mind to write to 
your owners what I think of you." 

I turned on him for a moment : 

" As it happens I don't care. For my part I assure 
you I won't even take the trouble to mention you to 
them." 

He stopped at the door of his office while I traversed 
the littered anteroom. I think he was somewhat taken 
aback. 

" I will break every bone in your body," he roared 
suddenly at the miserable mulatto lad, " if you ever 
dare to disturb me before half-past three for anybody. 
D'ye hear? For anybody! . . . Let alone any 
damned skipper," he added, in a lower growl. 

The frail youngster, swaying like a reed, made a low 
moaning sound. I stopped short and addressed this 
sufferer with advice. It was prompted by the sight of 
a hammer (used for opening the wine-cases, I suppose) 
which was lying on the floor. 

" If I were you, my boy, I would have that thing up 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 39 

my sleeve when I ^nt in next and at the first occa- 
sion I would ^^ 

What was there so familiar in that lad's yellow face ? 
Entrenched and quaking behind the flimsy desk, he 
never looked up. His heavy, lowered eyelids gave me 
suddenly the clue of the puzzle. He resembled — yes, 
those thick glued lips — he resembled the brothers 
Jacobus. He resembled both, the wealthy merchant 
and the pushing shopkeeper (who resembled each 
other) ; he resembled them as much as a thin, light- 
yellow mulatto lad may resemble a big, stout, middle- 
aged white man. It was the exotic complexion and 
the slightness of his build which had put me off so 
completely. Now I saw in him unmistakably the 
Jacobus strain, weakened, attenuated, diluted as it 
were in a bucket of water — and I refrained from fin- 
ishing my speech. I had intended to say : " Crack 
this brute's head for him." I still felt the conclusion 
to be sound. But it is no trifling responsibility to 
counsel parricide to any one, however deeply injured. 

** Beggarly — cheeky — skippers." 

I despised the emphatic growl at my back; only, 
being much vexed and upset, I regret to say that I 
slammed the door behind me in a most imdignified 
manner. 

It may not appear altogether absurd if I say that 
I brought out from that interview a kindlier view of 
the other Jacobus. It was with a feeling resembling 
partisanship that, a few days later, I called at his 
" store." That long, cavem-like place of business, 



40 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

very dim at the back and stuffed full of all sorts of 
goods, was entered from the street by a lofty archway. 
At the far end I saw my Jacobus exerting himself in 
his shirt-sleeves among his assistants. The captains' 
room was a small, vaulted apartment with a stone floor 
and heavy iron bars in its windows like a dungeon 
converted to hospitable purposes. A couple of cheerful 
bottles and several gleaming glasses made a brilliant 
cluster round a tall, cool red earthenware pitcher on 
the centre table which was littered with newspapers 
from all parts of the world. A well-groomed stranger 
in a smart grey check suit, sitting with one leg flung 
over his knee, put down one of these sheets briskly and 
nodded to me. 

I guessed him to be a steamer-captain. It was im- 
possible to get to know these men. They came and 
went too quickly and their ships lay moored far out, 
at the very entrance of the harbour. Theirs was an- 
other life altogether. He yawned slightly. 

" Dull hole, isn't it ? " 

I understood this to allude to the town. 

" Do you find it so ? " I murmured. 

" Don't you ? But I'm off to-morrow, thank good- 
ness." 

He was a very gentlemanly person, good-natured and 
superior. I watched him draw the open box of cigars 
to his side of the table, take a big cigar-case out of his 
pocket and begin to fill it very methodically. Pres- 
ently, on our eyes meeting, he winked like a common 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 41 

mortal and invited me to follow his example. " They 
are really decent smokes." I shook my head. 

** I am not off to-morrow." 

" What of that ? Think I am abusing old Jacobus's 
hospitality ? Heavens ! It goes into the bill, of course. 
He spreads such little matters all over his account. 
He can take care of himself 1 Why, it's business " 

I noted a shadow fall over his well-satisfied expres- 
sion, a momentary hesitation in closing his cigar-case. 
But he ended by putting it in his pocket jaimtily. A 
placid voice uttered in the doorway : " That's quite 
correct, Captain." 

The large noiseless Jacobus advanced into the roomw 
His quietness, in the circumstances, amounted to 
cordiality. He had put on his jacket before joining 
us, and he sat down in the chair vacated by the steamer- 
man, who nodded again to me and went out with a 
short, jarring laugh. A profoimd silence reigned. 
With his drowsy stare Jacobus seemed to be slumber- 
ing open-eyed. Yet, somehow, I was aware of being 
profoimdly scrutinised by those heavy eyes. In the 
enormous cavern of the store somebody began to nail 
down a case, expertly: tap-tap . . . tap-tap-tap. Two 
other experts, one slow and nasal, the other shrill and 
snappy, started checking an invoice. 

** A half-coil of three-inch manilla rope." 

'' Right ! " 

" Six assorted shackles." 

"Eight!" 



42 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" Six tins assorted soups, three of pate, two aspara- 
gus, fourteen pounds tobacco, cabin." 

"Eight!'' 

" It's for the captain who was here just now," 
breathed out the immovable Jacobus. " These steamer 
orders are very small. They pick up what they want 
as they go along. That man will be in Samarang in 
less than a fortnight. Very small orders indeed." 

The calling over of the items went on in the shop; 
an extraordinary jumble of varied articles, paint- 
brushes, Yorkshire Relish, etc., etc. ..." Three 
sacks of best potatoes," read out the nasal voice. 

At this Jacobus blinked like a sleeping man roused i 
by a shake, and displayed some animation. At his 
order, shouted into the shop, a smirking half-caste clerk 
with his ringlets much oiled and with a pen stuck be- 
hind his ear, brought in a sample of six potatoes which 
he paraded in a row on the table. 

Being urged to look at their beauty I gave them a 
cold and hostile glance. Calmly, Jacobus proposed 
that I should order ten or fifteen tons — tons! I 
couldn't believe my ears. My crew could not have 
eaten such a lot in a year; and potatoes (excuse these 
practical remarks) are a highly perishable commodity. 
I thought he was joking — or else trying to find out 
whether I was an unutterable idiot. But his purpose 
was not so simple. I discovered that he meant me to 
buy them on my own account. 

" I am proposing you a bit of business, Captain. I 
wouldn't charge you a great price." 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 43 

I told him that I did not go in for trade. I even 
added grimly that I knew only too well how that sort 
of spec, generally ended. 

He sighed and clasped his hands on his stomach 
with exemplary resignation. I admired the placidity 
of his impudence. Then waking up somewhat : 

" Won't you try a cigar, Captain ? " 

*^ No, thanks. I don't smoke cigars." 

"For once!" he exclaimed, in a patient whisper. 
A melancholy silence ensued. You know how some- 
times a person discloses a certain imsuspected depth 
and acuteness of thought ; that is, in other words, utters 
something unexpected. It was unexpected enough to 
hear Jacobus say: 

" The man who just went out was right enough. 
You might take one, Captain. Here everything is 
bound to be in the way of business." 

I felt a little ashamed of myself. The remembrance 
of his horrid brother made him appear quite a decent 
sort of fellow. It was with some compunction that I 
said a few words to the effect that I could have no 
possible objection to his hospitality. 

Before I was a minute older I saw where this ad- 
Diission was leading me. As if changing the subject, 
Jacobus mentioned that his private house was about ten 
minutes' walk away. It had a beautiful old walled 
^rden. Something really remarkable. I ought to 
come round some day and have a look at it. 

He seemed to be a lover of gardens. I too take 
Qxtreme delight in them ; but I did not mean my com- 



44 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

punction to carry me as far as Jacobus's flower-beds, 
however beautiful and old. He added, with a certain* 
homeliness of tone : 

" There's only my girl there." 

It is diflScult to set everything down in due order; u 
so I must revert here to what happened a week or two i 
before. The medical oflScer of the port had come on 
board my ship to have a look at one of my crew who 
was ailing, and naturally enough he was asked to step 
into the cabin. A fellow-shipmaster of mine was there 
too; and in the conversation, somehow or other, the ^ 
name of Jacobus came to be mentioned. It was pro- \ 
nounced with no particular reverence by the other 
man, I believe. I don't remember now what I was - 
going to say. The doctor — a pleasant, cultivated fel- 
low, with an assured manner — prevented me by strik- 
ing in, in a sour tone : 

" Ah ! You're talking about my respected papa-in- 
law." 

Of course, that sally silenced us at the time. . But I 
remembered the episode, and at this juncture, pushed 
for something non-committal to say, I inquired with 
polite surprise: 

" You have your married daughter living with you, ^ 
Mr. Jacobus ? " 

He moved his big hand from right to left quietly. 
No ! That was another of his girls, he stated, ponder- 
ously and under his breath as usual. She • • . He 
seemed in a pause to be ransacking his mind for some 
kind of descriptive phrase. But my hopes were dis- 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 45 

appointed. He merely produced his stereotyped defl- 
ation. 

" She's a very different sort of person." 

" Indeed. . . . And by the by, Jacobus, I called on 
your brother the other day. It's no great compliment 
if I say that I f oimd him a very different sort of person 
from you." 

He had an air of profound reflection, then remarked 
quaintly : 

" He's a man of regular habits." 

He might have been alluding to the habit of late 
siesta ; but I mumbled something about " beastly habits 
anyhow " — and left the store abruptly. 

IV 

My little passage with Jacobus the merchant be- 
came known generally. One or two of my ac- 
quaintances made distant allusions to it. Perhaps the 
mulatto boy had talked. I must confess that people 
appeared rather scandalised, but not with Jacobus's 
brutality. A man I knew remonstrated with me for 
my hastiness. 

I gave him the whole story of my visit, not forget- 
ting the tell-tale resemblance of the wretched mulatto 
boy to his tormentor. He was not surprised. No 
doubt, no doubt. What of that ? In a jovial tone he 
assured me that there must be many of that sort. The 
elder Jacobus had been a bachelor all his life. A 
highly respectable bachelor. But there had nevel 



46 'twi2:t land and sea 

been open scandal in that connection. His life had 
been quite regular. It could cause no offence to any 
one. 

I said that I had been offended considerably. My 
interlocutor opened very wide eyes. Why? Because 
a mulatto lad got a few knocks ? That was not a great *' 
affair, surely. I had no idea how insolent and un- 
truthful these half-castes were. In fact he seemed to 
think Mr. Jacobus rather kind than otherwise to em- 
ploy that youth at all ; a sort of amiable weakness which 
could be forgiven. . 

This acquaintance of mine belonged to one of the ^ 
old French families, descendants of the old colonists; 
all noble, all impoverished, and living a narrow domes- 
tic life in dull, dignified decay. The men, as a rule, 
occupy inferior posts in Government offices or in busi- 
ness houses. The girls are almost always pretty, igno- . 
rant of the world, kind and agreeable and generally I 
bilingual; they prattle innocently both in French and ^• 
English. The emptiness of their existence passes be- 
lief. 

I obtained my- entry into a couple of such house- 
holds because some years before, in Bombay, I had 
occasion to be of use to a pleasant, ineffectual young ^^: 
man who was rather stranded there, not knowing what 
to do with himself or even how to get home to 
his island again. It was a matter of two hundred 
rupees or so, but, when I turned up, the family made 
a point of showing their gratitude by admitting me to 
their intimacy. My knowledge of the French Ian- i 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 47 

guage made me specially acceptable. They had mean- 
time managed to marry the fellow to a woman nearly 
twice his age, comparatively well off: the only profes- 
sion he was really fit for. But it was not all cakes and 
ale. The first time I called on the couple she spied 
a little spot of grease on the poor devil's pantaloons 
and made him a screaming scene of reproaches so full 
of sincere passion that I sat terrified as at a tragedy of 
Racine. 

Of course there was never question of the money I 

had advanced him; but his sisters, Miss Angele and 

Miss Mary, and the aunts of both families, who spoke 

quaint archaic French of pre-Revolution period, and 

a host of distant relations adopted me for a friend 

outright in a manner which was almost embarrassing. 

It was with the eldest brother (he was employed at 

a desk in my consignee's office) that I was having this 

-i talk about the merchant Jacobus. He regretted my 

attitude and nodded his head sagely. An influential 

- man. One never knew when one would need him. I 

• expressed my immense preference for the shopkeeper 

of the two. At that my friend looked grave. 

" What on earth are you pulling that long face 
about ? " I cried impatiently. " He asked me to see 
his garden and I have a good mind to go some day." 
" Don't do that," he said, so earnestly that I burst 
into a fit of laughter; but he looked at me without a 
smile. 

This was another matter altogether. At one time 
the public conscience of the island had been mightily 



48 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

troubled by my Jacobus. The two brothers had been 
partners for years in great harmony, when a wandering 
circus came to the island and my Jacobus became 
suddenly infatuated with one o£ the lady-riders. What 
made it worse was that he was married. He had not 
even the grace to conceal his passion. It must have ' 
been strong indeed to carry away such a large placid 
creature. His behaviour was perfectly scandalous. 
He followed that woman to the Cape, and apparently 
travelled at the tail of that beastly circus to other 
parts of the world, in a most degrading position. The 
woman soon ceased to care for him, and treated him 
worse than a dog. Most extraordinary stories of moral 
degradation were reaching the island at that time. He 
had not the strength of mind to shaite himself free. . . . 

The grotesque image of a fat, pushing ship-chandler, 
enslaved by an unholy love-spell, fascinated me; and 
I listened rather open-mouthed to the tale as old as the 
■world, a tale which had been the subject of legend, of 
moral fables, of poems, but which so ludicrously failed 
to fit the personality. Wliat a strange victim for the 
godsl 

Meantime his deserted wife had died. His daughter 
was taken care of by hia brother, who married her as 
advantageously as was possible in the circumstances. 

" Oh t The Mrs. Doctor ! " I exclaimed. 

" Tou know that ? Yes. A very able man. He 
wanted a lift in the world, and there was a good bit 
of money from her mother, besides the expectations. ' 
. . . Of courae, tbey don't know him," he added, i 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 49 

** The doctor nods in the street, I believe, hut he avoids 
speaking to him when they meet on hoard a ship, as 
must happen sometimes." 

I remarked that this surely was an old story by now. 

My frienJ assented. But it was Jacobus's own fault 
that it was neither forgiven nor forgotten. , He came 
back ultimately. But how? Not in a spirit of con- 
trition, in a way to propitiate his scandalised fellow- 
citizens. He must needs drag along with him a child 
— a girl. • • • 

" He spoke to me of a daughter who lives with him," 
I observed, very much interested. 

" She's certainly the daughter of the circus-woman," 
said my friend. " She may be his daughter too ; I am 
willing to admit that she is. In fact I have no 
doubt '' 

But he did not see why she should have been 
brought into a respectable community to perpetuate the 
memory of the scandal. And that was not the worst. 
Presently something much more distressing happened. 
That abandoned woman turned up. Landed from a 
mail-boat. • • • 

"Whatl Here? To claim the child perhaps," I 
suggested. 

" Not she 1 " My friendly informant was very 
scornful. ** Imagine a painted, haggard, agitated, 
desperate hag. Been cast off in Mozambique by some- 
body who paid her passage here. She had been in- 
jured internally by a kick from a horse; she hadn't 
a cent on her when she got ashore; I don't think she 



50 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

even asked to see the child. At any rate, not till the 
last day of her life. Jacobus hired for her a bunga- 
low to die in. He got a couple of Sisters from the 
hospital to nurse her through these few months. If he 
didn't marry her in extremis as the good Sisters tried 
to bring about, it's because she wouldn't even hear of it. 
As the nuns said : ^ The woman died impenitent/ It 
was reported that she ordered Jacobus out of the room 
with her last breath. This may be the real reason why 
he didn't go into mourning himself; he only put the 
child into black. While she was little she was to be 
seen sometimes about the streets attended by a negro 
woman, but since she became of age to put her hair 
up I don't think she has set foot outside that garden 
once. She must be over eighteen now." 

Thus my friend, with some added details; such as, 
that he didn't think the girl had spoken to three peo- 
ple of any position in the island; that an elderly 
female relative of the brothers Jacobus had been in- 
duced by extreme poverty to accept the position of 
gouvemante to the girl. As to Jacobus's business 
(which certainly annoyed his brother) it was a wise 
choice on his part. It brought him in contact only 
with strangers of passage; whereas any other would 
have given rise to all sorts of awkwardness with his 
social equals. The man was not wanting in a certain 
tact — only he was naturally shameless. For why did 
he want to keep that girl with him ? It was most pain- 
ful for everybody. 

'I thought suddenly (and with profound disgust) of 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 51 

the other Jacobus, and I could not refrain from saying 
slily : 

" I suppose if he employed her, say as a scullion in 
his household and occasionally pulled her hair or boxed 
her ears, the position would have been more regular 
— less shocking to the respectable class to which he 
belongs." 

He was not so stupid as to miss my intention, and 
shrugged his shoulders impatiently. 

" You don't understand. To begin with, she's not 
a mulatto. And a scandal is a scandal. People 
should be given a chance to forget. I dare say it 
would have been better for her if she had been turned 
into a scullion or something of that kind. Of course 
he's trying to make money in eyery sort of petty way, 
but in such a business there'll never be enough for 
anybody to come forward." 

When my friend left me I had a conception of 
Jacobus and his daughter existing, a lonely pair of 
castaways, on a desert island ; the girl sheltering in the 
house as if it were a cavern in a cliff, and Jacobus go- 
ing out to pick up a living for both on the beach — 
exactly like two shipwrecked people who always hope 
for some rescuer to bring them back at last into touch 
with the rest of mankind. 

But Jacobus's bodily reality did not fit in with this 
romantic view. When he turned up on board in the 
usual course, he sipped the cup of coffee placidly, asked 
me if I was satisfied — and I hardly listened to the 
harbour gossip he dropped slowly in his low, voice- 



62 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

saving enunciation. I had then troubles of my own. 
My ship chartered, my thoughts dwelling on the success 
of a quick round voyage, I had been suddenly con- 
fronted by a shortage of bags. A catastrophe I The 
stock of one especial kind, called pockets, seemed to 
be totally exhausted. A consignment was shortly ex- 
pected — it was afloat, on its way, but, meantime, the 
loading of my ship dead stopped, I had enough to 
worry about. My consignees, who had received me 
with such heartiness on my arrival, now, in the char- 
acter of my charterers, listened to my complaints with 
polite helplessness. Their manager, the old-maidish, 
thin man, who so prudishly didn't even like to speak 
about the impure Jacobus, gave me the correct com- 
mercial view of the position. 

" My dear Captain " — he was retracting his 
leathery cheeks into a condescending, shark-like smile 
— " we were not morally obliged to tell you of a pos- 
sible shortage before you signed the charter-party. It 
was for you to guard against the contingency of a de- 
lay — strictly speaking. But of course we shouldn't 
have taken any advantage. This is no one's fault 
really. We ourselves have been taken unawares," he 
concluded primly, with an obvious lie. 

This lecture I confess had made me thirsty. Sup- 
pressed rage generally produces that effect; and as I 
strolled on aimlessly I bethought myself of the tall 
earthenware pitcher in the captains' room of the 
Jacobus " store." 

With no more than a nod to the men I found as- 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 58 

sembled there, I poured down a deep, cool draught 
on my indignation, then another, and then, becoming 
dejected, I sat plunged in cheerless reflections. The 
others read, talked, smoked, bandied over my head 
some unsubtle chaff. But my abstraction was re- 
spected. ^And it was without a word to any one that I 
rose and went out, only to be quite imexpectedly ac- 
costed in the bustle of the store by Jacobus the outcast. 

" Glad to see you, Captain. What ? Going away ? 
You haven't been looking so well these last few days, 
I notice. Run down, eh ? " 

He was in his shirt-sleeves, and his words were m 
the usual course of business, but they had a human 
note. It was commercial amenity, but I had been a 
stranger to amenity in that connection. I do verily 
believe (from the direction of his heavy glance towards 
a certain shelf) that he was going to suggest the pur- 
chase of Clarkson's Nerve Tonic, which he kept in 
stock, when I said ijnpulsively: 

" I am rather in trouble with my loading." 

Wide awake under his sleepy, broad mask with glued 
lips, he understood at once, had a movement of the 
head so appreciative that I relieved my exasperation 
by exclaiming: 

" Surely there must be eleven hundred quarter-bags 
to be found in the colony. It's only a matter of look- 
ing for them." 

Again that slight movement of the big head, and in 
the noise and activity of the store that tranquil 
murmur: 



54 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" To be sure. But then people likely to have a re- 
serve of quarter-bags wouldn't want to selL They'd 
need that size themselves." 

" That's exactly what my consignees are telling me. 
Impossible to buy. Bosh! They don't want to. It 
suits them to have the ship hung up. But if I were to 

discover the lot they would have to Look here 

Jacobus? You are the man to have such a thing up 
your sleeve." 

He protested with a ponderous swing of his big 
head. I stood before him helplessly, being looked at 
by those heavy eyes with a veiled expression as of a 
man after some soul-shaking crisis. Then, suddenly: 

" It's impossible to talk quietly here," he whispered. 
" I am very busy. But if you could go and wait for 
me in my house. It's less than ten minutes' walk. 
Oh, yes, you don't know the way." 

He called for his coat and offered to take me there 
himself. He would have to return to the store at once 
for an hour or so to finish his business, and then he 
would be at liberty to talk over with me that matter 
of quarter-bags. This programme was breathed out at 
me through slightly parted, still lips; his heavy, mo- 
tionless glance rested upon me, placid as ever, the 
glance of a tired man — but I felt that it was search- 
ing, too. I could not imagine what he was looking for 
in me and kept silent, wondering. 

" I am asking you to wait for me in my house till 
I am at liberty to talk this matter over. You will ? " 

" Why, of course ! " I cried. 



I 

\ 



A SMILE or FOETUNE 55 

" But I cannot promise " 

*^ I dare say not," I said. " I don't expect a 
promise." 

" I mean I can't even promise to try the move I've 
in my mind. One must see first . . . h'm ! '* 

" All right. I'll take the chance. I'll wait for you 
as long as you like. What else have I to do in this in- 
fernal hole of a port ! " 

Before I had uttered my last words we had set off 
at a swinging pace. We turned a couple of comers 
and entered a street completely empty of traffic, of 
semi-rural aspect, paved with cobblestones nestling in 
grass tufts. The house came to the line of the road- 
way ; a single story on an elevated basement of rough- 
stones, so that our heads were below the level of the 
windows as we went along. All the jalousies were 
tightly shut, like eyes, and the house seemed fast 
asleep in the afternoon sunshine. The entrance was 
at the side, in an alley even more grass-grown than the 
street: a small door, simply on the latch. 

With a word of apology as to showing me the wav. 
Jacobus preceded me up a dark passage and led me 
across the naked parquet floor of what I supposed to 
be the dining-room. It was lighted by three glass 
doors which stood wide open on to a verandah or 
rather loggia running its brick arches along t)ie garden 
side of the house. It was really a magnificent garden : 
smooth green lawns and a gorgeous maze of flower- 
beds in the foreground, displayed around a basin of 
dark water framed in a marble rim, and in the distance 



66 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 



' the Too&l 



the massed foliage of varied trees concealing 
of other houses. The town might have been milea 
away. It waa a brilliantly coloured Bolitude, drowsing 
In a warm, voluptuous silence. Where the long, still 
shadows fell across the beds, and in shady nooks, the 
massed colours of the flowers had an extraordinary 
magnificence of effect. I stood entranced. Jacobus 
grasped rae delicately above the elbow, impelling me \a 
a half-turn to the left. 

I had not noticed the girl befora She occupied i 
low, deep, wicberwork arm-chair, and I saw her in 
exact profile like a figure in a tapestry, and aa motiom 
leaa. Jacobus released my arm. 

"This is Alice," he announced tranquilly; and hii 
subdued manner of speaking made it sound ao much 
like a confidential oonimunieation that I fancied my 
self nodding understandingly and whispering: "I see, 
I see." ... Of course, I did nothing of the kiud. 
Neither of us did anything; we stood side by aide 
looking down at the girl. For quite a time she did no( 
stir, staring straight before her as if watching the vi'- 
sion of some pageant passing through the garden in th* 
deep, rich glow of light and the splendour of flowers. 

Then, coming to the end of her reverie, she looked 
round and np. If I had not at first noticed her, I 
am certain that she too had been unaware of my pre* 
ence till she actually perceived me by her father's side* 
The quickened upward movement of the heavy eyelids, 
the widening of the languid glance, passing into a fixed 
stare, put that beyond doubt. 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 57 

Under her amazement there was a hint of fear, and 
then came a flash as of anger. Jacohus, after uttering 
my name fairly loud, said : " Make yourself at home, 
Captain — I won't he gone long," and went away 
rapidly. Before I had time to make a how I was left 
alone with the girl — who, I remembered suddenly, had 
not been seen by any man or woman of that town since 
she had found it necessary to put up her hair. 
It looked as though it had not been touched again 
since that distant time of first putting up; it was a 
mass of black, lustrous locks, twisted anyhow high on 
her head, with long, untidy wisps hanging down on 
each side of the clear sallow face ; a mass so thick and 
strong and abundant that, nothing but to look at, it 
gave you a sensation of heavy pressure on the top of 
your head and an impression of magnificently cyni- 
cal untidiness. She leaned forward, hugging herself 
with crossed legs; a dingy, amber-coloured, flounced 
wrapper of some thin stuff revealed the young supple 
body drawn together tensely in the deep low seat as 
if crouching for a spring. I detected a slight, quiver- 
ing start or two, which looked uncommonly like bound- 
ing away. They were followed by the most absolute 
immobility. 

The absurd impulse to run out after Jacobus (for 
I had been startled, too) once repressed, I took a chair, 
placed it not very far from her, sat down deliberately, 
and began to talk about the garden, caring not what 
I said, but using a gentle caressing intonation as one 
talks to soothe a startled wild animaL I could not 



58 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

even be certain that she understood me. She never 
raised her face nor attempted to look my way. I kept 
on talking only to prevent her from taking flight. She 
had another of those quivering, represse4 starts which 
made me catch my breath with apprehension. 

Ultimately I formed a notion that what prevented 
her perhaps from going off in one great, nervous leap, 
was the scantiness of her attire. The wicker arm-chair 
was the most substantial thing about her person. What 
she had on under that dingy, loose, amber wrapper must 
have been of the most flimsy and airy character. One 
could not help being aware of it. It was obvious. I 
felt it actually embarrassing at first; but that sort of 
embarrassment is got over easily by a mind not en- 
slaved by narrow prejudices. I did not avert my gaze 
from Alice. I went on talking with ingratiating soft- 
ness, the recollection that, most likely, she had never 
before been spoken to by a strange man adding to my 
assurance. I don't know why an emotional tenseness 
should have crept into the situation. But it did. And 
just as I was becoming aware of it a slight scream cut 
short my flow of urbane speech. 

The scream did not proceed from the girl. It was 
emitted behind me, and caused me to turn my head 
sharply. I understood at once that the apparition in 
the doorway was the elderly relation of Jacobus, the 
companion, the gouvemante. While she remaiiled 
thunderstruck, I got up and made her a low bow. 

The ladies of Jacobus's household evidently spent 
their days in light attire. This stumpy old woman 



A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 69 

with a face like a large wrinkled lemon, beady eyes, 
and a shock of iron-grey hair, was dressed in a garment 
of some ash-coloured, silky, light stuff. It fell from 
her thick neck down to her toes with the simplicity of 
an unadorned nightgown. It made her appear truly 
cylindrical. She exclaimed : " How did you get here ? " 

Before I could say a word she vanished and presently 
I heard a confusion of shrill protestations in a distant 
part of the house. Obviously no one could tell her how 
I got there. In a moment, with great outcries from 
two negro women following her, she waddled back to 
the doorway, infuriated. 

" What do vou want here ? " 

I turned to the girL She was sitting straight up 
now, her hands posed on the arms of the chair. I ap- 
pealed to her. 

" Surely, Miss Alice, you will not let them drive me 
out into the street ? " 

Her magnificent black eyes, narrowed, long in shape, 
swept over me with an indefinable expression, then in 
a harsh, contemptuous voice she let fall in French a 
sort of explanation: 

'' C'est papa:* 

I made another low bow to the old woman. 

She turned her back on me in order to drive away 
her black henchwomen, then surveying my person in a 
peculiar manner with one small eye nearly closed and 
her face all drawn up on that side as if with a twinge 
of toothache, she stepped out on the verandah, sat down 
in a rocking-chair some, distance away^ and took up her 



60 'TWIST la:nd and sea 

knitting from a little table. Before she started at it 
she plunged one of the needlea into the mop of her grey 
hair and stirred it vigorously. 

Her elementary nightgown-sort of frock clung to her 
ancient, stumpy, and floating form. She wore white ^ 
cotton stockings and flat "brown velvet slippers. Her ' 
feet and ankles were obtrusively visible on the foot- ' 
rest. She began to rock herself slightly, while she ■ 
knitted. I had resumed my seat and kept quiet, for | 
I mistrusted that old woman. What if she ordered J; 
me to depart ? She seeraed capable of any outrage. 
She had snorted once or twice ; she was knitting 
violently. Suddenly she piped at the young girl in 
French a question which I translate colloquially: 

" What's your father up to, now ? " 

The young creature shrugged her shoulders so com- 
prehensively that her whole body swayed within the 
loose wrapper; and in that imexpectedly harsh voice 
which yet had a seductive quality to the senses, like 
certain kinds of natural rough winea one drinks with 
pleasure : 

" It's some captain. Leave me alone — will you ! " 

The chair rocked quicker, the old, thin voice was like 
a whistle. 

" You and your father make a pair. He would stick 
at nothing — that's well known. But I didn't expect 
this." 

I thought it high time to air some o£ ray own French. 
I remarked modestly, but firmly, that this was business, 
I had some matters to talk over with iLr, Jacobiw, 



i 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 61 

At once she piped out a derisive " Poor innocent ! '' 
Then, with a change of tone : " The shop's for busi- 
ness. Why don't you go to the shop to talk with him ? " 

The furious speed of her fingers and knitting- 
Deedles made one dizzy ; and with squeaky indignation : 

" Sitting here staring at that giri — is that what you 
call business ? " 

" No," I said suavely. " I call this pleasure — an 
unexpected pleasure. And unless Miss Alice ob- 
jects ^" 

I half turned to her. She flung at me an angry and 
contemptuous " Don't care ! " and leaning her elbow 
on her knees took her chin in her hand — a Jacobus 
chin "Undoubtedly. And those heavy eyelids, this black 
irritated stare reminded me of Jacobus, too — the 
wealthy merchant, the respected one. The design of 
her eyebrows also was the same, rigid and ill-omened. 
Yes! I traced in her a resemblance to both of them. 
It came to me as a sort of surprising remote inference 
that both these Jacobuses were rather handsome men 
after all. I said: 

" Oh I Then I shall stare at you till you smile." 

She favoured me again with an even more viciously 
scornful " Don't care ! ". 

The old woman broke in blunt and shrill : 

** Hear his impudence I And you too ! Don't care ! 
Go at least and put some more clothes on. Sitting 
there like this before this sailor riff-raff." 

The sun was about to leave the Pearl of the Ocean 
for other seas, for other lands. The walled garden full 



62 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

of shadows blazed with colour as if the flowers were 
giving up the light absorbed during the day. The 
amazing old woman became very explicit. She sug- 
gested to the girl a corset and a petticoat with a cymcsl 
unreserve which humiliated me. Was I of no more ac- 
count than a wooden dummy ? The girl snapped out : 
" Shan't ! " 

It was not the naughty retort of a vulgar child; 
it had a note of desperation. Clearly my intrusion 
had somehow upset the balance of their established 
relations. The old woman knitted with furious ac- 
curacy, her eyes fastened down on her work. 

" Oh, you are the true child of your father ! And 
that talks of entering a convent! Letting herself be 
stared at by a fellow." 

" Leave off." 

" Shameless thing ! " 

" Old sorceress," the girl uttered distinctly, preserv- 
ing her meditative pose, chin in hand, and a far-away 
stare over the garden. 

It was like the quarrel of the kettle and the pot. The 
old woman flew out of the chair, banged down her 
work, and with a great play of thick limb perfectly 
visible in that weird, clinging garment of hers, strode 
at the girl — who never stirred. I was experiencing 
a sort of trepidation when, as if awed by that uncon- 
scious attitude, the aged relative of Jacobus turned 
short upon me. 

She was, I perceived, armed with a knitting-needle; 
and as she raised her hand her intention seemed to be to 



A SMILE OF rOKTUNE 63 

throw it at me like a dart. But she only used it to 
scratch her head with, examining me the while at close 
range, one eye nearly shut and her face distorted by a 
whimsical, one-sided grimace. 

" My dear man," she asked abruptly, " do you ex- 
pect any good to come of this ? " 

" I do hope so indeed. Miss Jacobus." I tried to 
speak in the easy tone of an afternoon caller. " You 
see, I am here after some bags." 

" Bags ! Look at that now I Didn't I hear you 
holding forth to that graceless wretch?" 

" You would like to see me in my grave," uttered the 
motionless girl hoarsely. 

" Grave ! What about me ? Buried alive before I 
am dead for the sake of a thing blessed with such a 
pretty father ! " she cried ; and turning to me : " You're 
one of these men he does business with. Well — why 
don't you leave us in peace, my good fellow ? " 

It was said in a tone — this " leave us in peace I " 
There was a sort of ruffianly familiarity, a superiority, 
a scorn in it. I was to hear it more than once, for you 
would show an imperfect knowledge of human nature 
if you thought that this was my last visit to that house 
— where no respectable person had put foot for ever 
so many years. No, you would be very much mistaken 
if you imagined that this reception had scared me away. 
First of all I was not going to run before a grotesque 
and ruffianly old woman. 

And then you mustn't forget these necessary bags. 
That first evening Jacobus made me stay to dinner; 



64 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA ( 

after, however^ telling me loyally that lie didn't know 
whether he could do anything at all for me. He had 
been thinking it over. It was too difficult, he feared 
. • . But he did not give it up in so many words. 

We were only three at table; the girl by means of .. 
repeated " Won't " " Shan't ! " and " Don't care ! " f 
having conveyed and affirmed her intention not to come f 
to the table, not to have any dinner, not to move from ( 
the verandah. The old relative hopped about in her 
flat slippers and piped indignantly, Jacobus towered 
over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined r 
jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, J 
for which under the cover of the niffht I received ■. 
secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old [ 
woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. 
And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to 
raise her head to look at any of us. All this may 
sound childish — and yet that stony, petulant sullen- |. 
ness had an obscurely tragic flavour. j 

And so we sat down to the food around the light of 
a good many candles while she remained crouching , 
out there, staring in the dark as if feeding her bad 
temper on the heavily scented air of the admirable « 
garden. ; 

Before leaving I said to Jacobus that I would come 
next day to hear if the bag affair had made any prog- 
ress. He shook his head slightly at that. 

" I'll haunt your house daily till you pull it off. 
You'll be always finding me here." 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 65 

His faint, melancholy smile did not part his thick 
lips. 

" That Will he all right, Captain." 

Then seeing me to the door, very tranquil, he mur- 
mured earnestly the recommendation : " Make your- 
self at home," and also the hospitahle hint about there 
being always " a plate of soup." It was only on my* 
way to the quay, down the ill-lighted streets, that I re- 
membered I had been engaged to dine that every even- 
ing with the S family. Though vexed with my 

forgetfulness (it would be rather awkward to explain) 
I couldn't help thinking that it had procured me a 
more amusing evening. And besides — business. The 
sacred business . 

In a barefooted negro who overtook me at a run and 
bolted down the landing-steps I recognized Jacobus's 
boatman, who must have been feeding in the kitchen. 
His usual " Good-night, sah ! " as I went up my ship's 
ladder had a more cordial sound than on previous 
occasions. 

V 

I KEPT my word to Jacobus. I haunted his home. 
He was perpetually finding me there of an after- 
noon when he popped in for a moment from the 
"store." The sound, of my voice talking to his Alice 
greeted him on his doorstep ; and when he returned for 
good in the evening, ten to one he would hear it still 
going Qii ia the verandah. I just nodded to him ; he 
would sit (Jgwn heavily and gently, and watch with ^ 



j^ • - -' — 



66 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

sort of approving anxiety my efforts to malce h: 
daughter smile. 

I called her often "Alice," right before him; sonii 
times I would address her as Miss " Don't Care," an 
I exhausted myself in nonsensical chatter withoT 
succeeding once in taking her out of her peevish an 
tragic self. There were moments when I felt I mm 
break out and start swearing at her till all was blu> 
And I fancied that had I done so Jacobus would ni 
have moved a muscle. A sort of shady, intimate unde 
standing seemed to have been established between a 

I must say the girl treated her father exactly in 11 
same way she treated me. 

And how could it have been otherwise 3 She treatc 
me as she treated her father. She bad never seen 
visitor. She did not know how men behaved. 
belonged to the low lot with whom her father did bm 
ness at the port. I was of no account. So was h 
father. The only decent people in the world we: 
the people of the island, who would have nothing ■ 
do with him because of something wicked he had don 
This was apparently the explanation Miss Jacobus h{ 
given her of the household's isolated position. For si 
had to be told something 1 And I feel convinced tb 
this version bad been assented to by Jacobus. I mu 
say the old woman was putting it forward with ca 
aiderable gusto. It waa on her lips the universal fl 
planation, the universal allusion, the universal taiii 
One day Jacobus came in early and, beckoning n 
into the dining-room, wiped his brow with t 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 67 

gesture and told me that he had managed to unearth 
a supply of quarter-bags. 

" It's fourteen hundred your ship wanted, did you 
say, Captain?" 

" Yes, yes ! " I replied eagerly ; but he remained 
calm. He looked more tired than I had ever seen him 
before. 

"Well, Captain, you may go and tell your people 
that they can get that lot from my brother." 

As I remained open-mouthed at this, he added his 
usual placid formula of assurance : 

"You'll find it correct. Captain." 

"You spoke to your brother about it?" I was 
distinctly awed. "And for me? Because he must 
have known that my ship's the only one hung up for 
bags. How on earth ^" 

He wiped his brow again. I noticed that he was 
dressed with unusual care, in clothes in which I had 
never seen him before. He avoided my eye. 

"You've heard people talk, of course. . . . That's 
true enough. He . . . I . . . We certainly . . . for 
several years . . ." His voice declined to a mere 
sleepy murmur. "You see I had something to tell 
him of, something which ^" 

His murmur stopped. He was not going to tell me 
what this something was. And I didn't care. Anx- 
ious to carry the news to my charterers, I ran back on 
the verandah to get my hat. 

At the bustle I made the girl turned her eyes slowly 
in my direction, and even the old woman was checked 



i 



68 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

in her knitting. I stopped a moment to exclaii 
excitedly : 

" Your father's a brick, Miss Don't Care. That 
what he is." 

She beheld my elation in scornful surprise. Jacobi 
with unwonted familiarity seized my arm as I fle' 
through the dining-room, and breathed heavily at me 
proposal about " A plate of soup " that evening, 
answered distractedly: "Eh? What? Oh, thanb 
Certainly. With pleasure," and tore myself awa; 
Dine with him ? Of course. The merest grat 
tude 

But some three hours afterwards, in the dusky, silei 
street, paved with cobble-stones, I became aware that 
was not mere gratitude which was guiding my stej 
towards the house with the old garden, where for yeai 
no guest other than myself had ever dined. Mei 
gratitude does not gnaw at one's interior economy i 
that particular way. Hunger might; but I was n< 
feeling, particularly hungry for Jacobus's food. 

On. that occasion, too, the girl refused to come to tl 
table. 

My exasperation grew. The old woman cast mal 
cious glances at me. I said suddenly to Jacobui 
" Here ! Put some chicken and salad on that plate. 
He obeyed without raising his eyes. I carried it wil 
a knife and fork and a serviette out on the veranda' 
The garden was one mass of gloom, like a cemetery ( 
flowers buried in the darkness, and she, in the chai 
seemed to muse mournfully over the extinction < 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 69 

light and colour. Only whiffs of heavy scent passed 
like wandering, fragrant souls of that departed multi- 
tude of blossoms. I talked volubly, jocularly, per- 
suasively, tenderly; I talked in a subdued tone. To 
a listener it would have sounded like the murmur of a 
pleading loven Whenever I paused expectantly there 
was only a deep silence. It was like offering food to 
a seated statute. 

" I haven't been able to swallow a single morsel 
thinking of you out here starving yourself in the dark. 
It's positively cruel to be so obstinate. Think of my 
sufferings." 

" Don't care." 

I felt as if I could have done her some violence — 
shaken her, beaten her maybe. I said : 

" Your absurd behaviour will prevent me coming 
here any more." 

" What's that to me ? " 

" You like it." 

" It's false," she snarled. 

My hand fell on her shoulder ; and if she had flinched 
I verily believe I would have shaken her. But there 
was no movement and this immobility disarmed my 
anger. 

" You do. Or you wouldn't be found on the 
verandah every day. Why are you here, then? 
There are plenty of rooms in the house. You have 
your own room to stay in — if you did not want to 
see me. But you do. You know you do." 

I felt a slight shudder under my hand and released 



■V 



70 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

my grip as if frightened by that sign of animation in 
her body. The scented air of the garden came to ns 
in a warm wave like a voluptuous and perfumed sigh. , 

" Go back to them," she whispered, almost pitifully. 

As I re-entered the dining-room I saw Jacobus cast ] 
down his eyes. I banged the plate on the table. At j 
this demonstration of ill-humour he murmured some- i 
thing in an apologetic tone, and I turned on him | 
viciously as if he were accountable to me for these 
" abominable eccentricities,'' I believe I called them. 

" But I dare say Miss Jacobus here is responsible 
for most of this offensive manner," I added loftily. 

She piped out at once in her brazen, ruffianly 
manner : 

" Eh ? Why don't you leave us in peace, my good 
fellow ? " 

I was astonished that she should dare before Jacobus. 
Yet what could he have done to repress her? He 
needed her too much. He raised a heavy, drowsy 
glance for an instant, then looked down again. She 
insisted with shrill finality : 

" Haven't you done your business, you two ? Well, 
then '' 

She had the true Jacobus impudence, that old 
woman. Her mop of iron-grey hair was parted on the 
side like a man's, raffishly, and she made as if to 
plunge her fork into it, as she used to do with the 
knitting-needle, but refrained. Her little black eyes 
sparkled venomously. I turned to my host at the head 
of the table — menacingly as it were. 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 71 

" Well, and what do you say to that, Jacobus ? Am 
I to take it that we have done with each other ? " 

I had to wait a little. The answer when it came was 
rather unexpected, and in quite another spirit than 
the question, 

** I certainly think we might do some business yet 
, with those potatoes of mine, Captain. You wiU find 
that '' 

I cut him short. 

" IVe told you before that I don't trade." 

His broad chest heaved without a sound in a noise- 
less sigh. 

" Think it over, Captain," he murmured, tenacious 
and tranquil; and I burst into a jarring laugh, re- 
membering how he had stuck to the circus-rider 
woman — the depth of passion under that placid 
surface, which even cuts with a riding-whip (so the 
l^end had it) could never ruffle into the semblance of 
a storm; something like the passion of a fish would 
be if one could imagine such a thing as a passionate fish. 

That evening I experienced more distinctly than 
ever the sense of moral discomfort which always 
attended me in that house lying under the ban of all 
** decent " people. I refused to stay on and smoke 
after dinner; and when I put my hand into the thickly- 
cushioned palm of Jacobus, I said to myself that it 
would be for the last time under his roof. I pressed 
his bulky paw heartily nevertheless. Hadn't he got 
me out of a serious difficulty? To the few words of 
acknowledgment I was bound, and indeed quite will- 



72, ^TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 

ing, to utter, he answered by stretching his closed lips 
in his melancholy, glued-together smile. 

" That will be all right, I hope, Captain,'' he 
breathed out weightily. 

"What do you mean?" I asked, alarmed. "That 
your brother might yet ^^ 

" Oh, no," he reassured me. " He . . . he's a man 
of his word. Captain." 

My self-communion as I walked away from his door, 
trying to believe that this was for the last time, was 
not satisfactory. I was aware myself that I was not 
sincere in my reflections as to Jacobus's motives, and, 
of course, the very next day I went back again. 

How weak, irrational, and absurd we are! How 
easily carried away whenever our awakened imagina- 
tion brings us the irritating hint of a desire 1 I cared 
for the girl in a particular way, seduced by the moody 
expression of her face, by her obstinate silences, her 
rare, scornful words; by the perpetual pout of her 
closed lips, the black depths of her fixed gaze turned 
slowly upon me as if in contemptuous provocation, 
only to be averted next moment with an exasperating 
indifference. 

Of course the news of my assiduity had spread all 
over the little town. I noticed a change in the manner 
of my acquaintances and even something different in 
the nods of the other captains, when meeting them at 
the landing-steps or in the oflSces where business called 
me. The old-maidish head clerk treated me with 
distant punctiliousness and, as it were, gathered his 



A SMILE or FOETUNE 78 

skirts round him for fear of contamination. It seemed 
to me that the very niggers on the quays turned to 
look after me as I passed; and as to Jacobus's boat- 
man his " Good-night, sah ! " when he put me on board 
was no longer merely cordial — it had a familiar, con- 
fidential sound as though we had been partners in some 
villainy. 

My friend S the elder passed me on the other 

side of the street with a wave of the hand and an 
ironic smile. The younger brother, the one they had 
married to an elderly shrew, he, on the strength of an 
older friendship and as if paying a debt of gratitude, 
took the liberty to utter a word of warning. 

" You're doing yourself no good by your choice of 
friends, my dear chap,'' he said with infantile gravity: 

As I knew that the meeting of the brothers Jacobus 
was the subject of excited comment in the whole of 
the sugary Pearl of the Ocean I wanted to know why 
I was blamed. 

" I have been the occasion of a move which may 
end in a reconciliation surely desirable from the point 
of view of the proprieties — don't you know ? " 

" Of course, if that girl were disposed of it would 
certainly facilitate " he mused sagely, then, in- 
consequential creature, gave me a light tap on the 
lower part of my waistcoat. "You old sinner," he 
cried jovially, "much you care for proprieties. But 
you had better look out for yourself, you know, with 
a personage like Jacobus who has no sort of reputation 
to lose." 



n 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

He had recovered his gravity of a respectable citizen 
by that time and added regretfully: 

" All the women of our family are perfectly 
Boandalised." 

But by that time I had given up visiting the S 

family and the D family. The elder ladies pulled 

such faces wben I showed myself, and the multitude 
of related young ladies received me with such a variety 
of looks: ■wondering, awed, mocking (except Miss 
Mary, who spoke to me and looked at me with hushed, 
pained compassion as though I had been ill), that I 
tad no difficulty in giving them all up. I would have 
given up the society of the whole tovm, for the sake 
of sitting near that girl, snarling and superb and barely 
clad in that flimsy, dingy^ amber wrapper, open low 
at the throat. She looked, with the wild wiapa of hair 
hanging down her tense face, as though she had just 
jumped out of ted in the panic of a fire. 

She sat leaning on her elbow, looking at nothing. 
Why did she stay listening to my absurd chatter! 
And not only that; but why did she powder her face 
in preparation for my arrival ? It seemed to be her 
idea of making a toilette, and in her untidy negligence 
a sign of great effort towards personal adornment. 

But I miglit have been mistaken. The powdering 
might have been her daily practice and her presence 
in the verandah a sign of an indifference so complete 
as to take no account of my existence. Well, it was 
all one to me. 
[ I loved to watch her slow changes of p08^ ((> look..^ 



A SMILE OF rOETUNE 75 

at her long immobilities composed in the graceful lines 
of her body, to observe the mysterious narrow stare 
of her splendid black eyes, somewhat long in shape, 
half closed, contemplating the void. She was like a 
spellbound creature with the forehead of a goddess 
crowned by the dishevelled magnificent hair of a gipsy 
tramp. Even her indifference was seductive. I felt 
myself growing attached to her by the bond of an 
irrealisable desire, :^or I kept my head — quite. And 
I put up with the moral discomfort of Jacobus's sleepy 
watchfulness, tranquil, and yet so expressive; as if 
there had been a tacit pact between us two. I put 
up with the insolence of the old woman's : " Aren't 
you ever going to leave us in peace, my good 
fellow ? " with her taunts ; with her brazen and sinister 
scolding. She was of the true Jacobus stock, and no 
mistake. 

Directly I got away from the girl I called myself 
many hard names. What folly was this? I would 
ask myself. It was like being the slave of some 
depraved habit. And I returned to^ her with my 
head clear, my heart certainly free, not even moved 
by pity for that castaway (she was as much of a cast- 
away as any one ever wrecked on a desert island), but 
as if beguiled by some extraordinary promise. Noth- 
ing more unworthy could be imagined. The recollec- 
tion of that tremulous whisper when I gripped her 
shoulder with one hand and held a plate of chicken 
with the other was enough to make me break all my 
good resolutions. 



Y6 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

Her insulting taciturnity was enough sometimes to 
make one gnash one's teeth with rage. When she 
opened her mouth it was only to be abominably rude 
in harsh tones to the associate of her reprobate 
father ; and the full approval of her aged relative was 
conveyed to her by offensive chuckles. If not that, 
then her remarks, always uttered in the tone of scath- 
ing contempt, were of the most appalling inanity. 

How could it have been otherwise? That plump, 
ruffianly Jacobus old maid in the tight grey frock had 
never taught her any manners. Manners I suppose 
are not necessary for bom castaways. No educational 
establishment could ever be induced to accept her 
as a pupil — on account of the proprieties, I imagine. 
And Jacobus had not been able to send her away any- 
where. How could he have done it? Who with? 
Where to? He himself was not enough of an adven- 
turer t© think of settling down anywhere else. His 
passion had tossed him at the tail of a circus up and 
down strange coasts, but, the storm over, he had drifted 
back shamelessly where, social outcast as he was, he 
remained still a Jacobus — one of the oldest families 
on the island, older than the French even. There inust 
have been a Jacobus in at the death of the last 
Dodo. . . . The girl had learned nothing, she had 
never listened to a general conversation, she knew 
nothing, she had heard of nothing. She could read 
certainly ; but all the reading matter that ever came in 
her way were the newspapers provided for the cap- 
tains' room of the " store." Jacobus had the habit of 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 77 

taking these sheets home now and then in a very 
stained and ragged condition. 

As her mind could not grasp the meaning of any 
matters treated there except police-court reports and 
accounts of crimes, she had formed for herself a notion 
of the civilised world as a scene of murders, abductions, 
burglaries, stabbing affrays, and every sort of desperate 
violence. England and France, Paris and London 
(the only two towns of which she seemed to have 
heard), appeared to her sinks of abomination, reeking 
with blood, in contrast to her little island where petty 
larceny was about the standard of current misdeeds, 
with, now and then, some more pronounced crime — 
and that only amongst the imported coolie labourers 
on sugar estates or the negroes of the town. But in 
Europe these things were being done daily by a wicked 
papulation of white men amongst whom, as that 
ruflSanly, aristocratic old Miss Jacobus pointed out, 
the wandering sailors, the associates of her precious 
papa, were the lowest of the low. 

It was impossible to give her a sense of proportion. 
I suppose she figured England to herself as about the 
size of the Pearl of the Ocean; in which case it would 
certainly have been reeking with gore and a mere 
wreck, of burgled houses from end to end. One could 
not make her understand that these horrors on which 
she fed her imagination were lost in the mass of orderly 
life like a few drops of blood in the ocean. She directed 
upon me for a moment the uncomprehending glance 
of hex narrowed, eyes and then would turn her scornful 



1 



78 'TWIXT LAND AKD SEA 

powdered face away without a word. She would not 

en take the trouble to shrug her shoulders, ^ 

At that time the batclies of papers brought by the 
last mail reported a series of crimeB in the East End 
of London, there was a sensational case of abduction 
in Trance and a fine display of armed robbery in 
Australia. One afternoon crossing the dining-room I 
heard Miss Jacobus piping in the verandah with 
venomous animosity : " I don't know what yonr 
precious papa is plotting with that fellow. But he's 
juat the sort of man who's capable of carrying you ofE 
far away somewhere and then cutting your throat some 
day for your money." 

There was a good half of the length of the verandah 
between their chairs, I came out and sat down fiercely 
midway between them. 

" Yes, that's what we do with girls in Europe," I 
began in a grimly matter-of-fact tone, I think Mise 
Jacobus was disconcerted by my sudden appearance. I 
turned upon her with cold ferocity: 

" As to the objectionable old women, they are first 
strangled quietly, then cut up into small pieces and 
thrown away, a bit here and a bit there. They van- 

1 " 

I cannot go so far as to say I had terrified her. But 
she was troubled by my truculence, the more so because 
I had been always addressing her with a politeness she 
did not deserve. Her plump, knitting hands fell 
slowly on her knees. She said not a word while I fixed 
lier with severe determination. Then as I turned away 



A SMILE OF FOETTTNE 79 

from her at kst, she laid down her work gently and, 
with noiseless movements, retreated from the verandah. 
In fact, she vanished. 

But I was not thinking of her. I was looking at 
the girL It was what I was coming for daily; trou- 
bled, ashamed, eagpr; finding in my nearness to her a 
unique sensation which I indulged with dread, self- 
contempt, and deep pleasure, as if it were a secret vice 
bound to end in my undoing, like the habit of some drug 
or other which ruins and degrades its slave. 

I looked her over, from the top of her dishevelled 
head, down the lovely line of the shoulder, following 
the curve of the hip, the draped form of the long limb, 
right down to her fine ankle below a torn, soiled 
flounce; and as far as the point of the shabby, high- 
heeled, blue slipper, dangling from her well-shaped 
foot, which she moved slightly, vdth quick, nervous 
jerks, as if impatient of my presence. And in the 
scent of the massed flowers I seemed to breathe her 
special and inexplicable charm, the heady perfume of 
the everlastingly irritated captive of the garden. 

I looked at her rounded chin, the Jacobus chin; at 
the full, red lips pouting in the powdered, sallow face ; 
at the firm modelling of the cheek, the grains of white 
in the hairs of the straight sombre eyebrows; at the 
long eyes, a narrowed gleam of liquid white and in- 
tense motionless black, with their gaze so empty of 
thought, and so absorbed in their fixity that she seemed 
to be staring at her own lonely image, in some far-off 
mirror hidden from my sight amongst the trees. 



80 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

And suddenly, without looking at me, with the a 
pearance of a person speaking to herself, she aske 
in that voice slightly harsh yet mellow and always i 
ritated : 

" Why do you keep on coming here ? '' 

" Why do I keep on coming here ? " I repeate 

» 

taken by surprise. I could not have told her. I con. 
not even tell myself with sincerity why I was comii 
there. "What^s the good of you asking a questi( 
like that ? " 

" Nothing is any good," she observed scornfully 
the empty air, her chin propped on her hand, th 
hand never extended to any man, that no one had ev 
grasped — for I had only grasped her shoulder on 
— that generous, fine, somewhat masculine hand, 
knew well the peculiarly eflScient shape — broad at tl 
base, tapering at the fingers — of that hand, for whi( 
there was nothing in the world to lay hold of. I pr 
tended to be playful. 

" No ! But do you really care to know ? " 
She shrugged indolently her magnificent shouldei 
from which the dingy thin wrapper was slipping 
little. 

" Oh — never mind — never mind ! " 
There was something smouldering under those ai 
of lassitude. She exasperated me by the provocatic 
of her nonchalance, by something elusive and defiai 
in her very form which I wanted to seize. I sa: 
roughly : 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 81 

"Why? Don't you think I should tell you the 
truth ? " 

Her eyes glided my way for a sidelong look, and 
she murmured, moving only her full, pouting lips : 

" I think you would not dare.'' 

" Do you imagine I am afraid of you ? What on 
earth. . . . Well, it's possible, after all, that I don't 
know exactly why I am coming here. Let us say, 
with Miss Jacobus, that it is for no good. You seem 
to believe the outrageous things she says, if you do 
have a row with her now and then." 

She snapped out viciously: 

"Who else am I to believe?" 

" I don't know," I had to own, seeing her suddenly 
very helpless and condemned to moral solitude by the 
verdict of a respectable community. " You might be- 
lieve me, if you chose." 

She made a slight movement and asked me at once, 
with an effort as if making an experiment: 

What is the business between you and papa ? " 
Don't you know the nature of your father's bus- 
iness? Come! He sells provisions to ships." 

She became rigid again in her crouching pose. 

"Not that. What brings you here — to this 
house ? " 

"And suppose it's you? You would not call that 
business? Would you? And now let us drop the 
subject. It's no use. My ship will be ready for sea 
the day after to-morrow." 






82 'TWIXT LAOT) AIs^D SEA 

She murmured a distinctly scared " So soon," and 
getting up quickly, went to the little table and poured 
herself a glass of water. She walked with rapid steps 
and with an indolent swaying of her whole young figure 
above the hips; when she passed near me I felt with 
tenfold force the charm of the peculiar, promising sen- 
sation I had formed the habit to seek near her. I 
thought with sudden dismay that this was the end of 
it ; that after one more day I would be no longer able 
to come into this verandah, sit on this chair, and taste 
perversely the flavour of contempt in her indolent L 
poses, drink in the provocation of her scornful looks, I 
and listen to the curt, insolent remarks uttered in that 
harsh and seductive voice. As if my innermost nature I 
had been altered by the action of some moral poison, I 
felt an abject dread of going to sea. 

I had to exercise a sudden self-eontrol, as one puts 
on a brake, to prevent myself jumping up to stride 
about, about, gesticulate, make her a scene. What for ? 
What about ? I had no idea. It was just the relief of ■ 
violence that I wanted ; and I lolled back in my chair, 1 
trying to keep my lipa formed in a smile; that half- ' 
indulgent, half-mocking smile which was my shield 
against the shafts of her contempt and the insulting 
salliea flung at me by the old woman. i 

She drank the water at a draught, with the avidity 
i of raging thirst, and let herself fall on the nearest 
chair, as if utterly overcome. Her attitude, like cer- 
tain tones of her voice, had in it something masculine; 
|- the kneea apart in the ample wrapper, the clasped 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 83 

hands hanging between them, her body leaning for- 
ward, with drooping head. I stared 'at the heavy 
black coil of twisted hair. It was enormous, crowning 
the bowed head with a crushing and disdained glory. 
The escaped wisps hung straight down. And sud- 
denly I perceived that the girl was trembling from 
head to foot, as though that glass of iced water had 
chilled her to the bone. 

" What's the matter now V^ I said, startled, but in 
no very sympathetic mood. 

She shook her bowed, overweighted head and cried 
in a stifled voice but with a rising inflection : 

" Go away I Go away ! Go away ! " 

I got up then and approached her, with a strange 
sort of anxiety. I looked down at her round, strong 
neck, then stooped low enough to peep at her face. 
And I began to tremble a little myself. 

"What on earth are you gone wild about. Miss 
Don't Care ? '' 

She flung herself backwards violently, her head go- 
ing over the back of the chair. And now it was her 
smooth, full, palpitating throat that lay exposed to my 
bewildered stare. Her eyes were nearly closed, with 
only a horrible white gleam under the lids as if she 
were dead* 

" What has come to you ? '' I asked in awe. " What 
are you terrifying yourself with ? '' 

She pulled herself together, her eyes open fright- 
fully wide now. The tropical afternoon was length- 
ening the shadows on the hot, weary earth, the abode of 



84 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

obscure desires, of extravagant hopes, of unimaginable 
terrors. 

" Never mind ! Don't care ! '' Then, after a gasp, J 
she spoke with such frightful rapidity that I could I 
hardly make out the amazing words: "For if you 
were to shut me up in an empty place as smooth all 
round as the palm of my hand, I could always strangle 
myself with my hair." ( 

For a moment, doubting my ears, I let this incon- f 
ceivable declaration sink into me. It is ever impos- 
sible to guess at the wild thoughts that pass through | 
the heads of our fellow-creatures. What monstrous 
imaginings of violence could have dwelt under the low 
forehead of that girl who had been taught to regard i 
her father as " capable of anything " more in the light 
of a misfortune than that of a disgrace; as, evidently, 
something to be resented and feared rather than to 
be ashamed of? She seemed, indeed, as unaware of 
shame as of anything else in the world; but in her 
ignorance, her resentment and fear took a childish and 
violent shape. 

Of course she spoke without knowing the value of 
words. What could she know of death — she who 
knew nothing of life? It was merely as the proof of 
her being beside herself with some odious apprehension, 
that this extraordinary speech had moved me, not to i 
pity, but to a fascinated, horrified wonder. I had no . 
idea what notion she had of her danger. Some sort 
of abduction. It was quite possible with the talk of 
that atrocious old woman. Perhaps she thought she 



A SMILE OP FOETUNE 85 

could be carried off, bound hand and foot and even 
gagged. At that surmise I felt as if the door of a 
furnace had been opened in front of me. 

" Upon my honour ! '' I cried. " You shall end by 
going crazy if you listen to that abominable old aunt 
of yours '^ 

I studied her haggard expression, her trembling 
lips. Her cheeks even seemed sunk a little. But 
how I, the associate of her disreputable father, the 
" lowest of the low '' from the criminal Europe, could 
manage to reassure her I had no conception. She was 
exasperating. 

" Heavens and earth ! What do you think I can 
do?" 

" I don't know." 

Her chin certainly trembled. And she was looking 
at me with extreme attention. I made a step nearer 
to her chair. 

" I shall do nothing. I promise you that. Will 
that do? Do you understand? I shall do nothing 
whatever, of any kind ; and the day after to-morrow I 
shall be gone." 

What else could I have said? She seemed to drink 
in my words with the thirsty avidity with which she 
had emptied the glass of water. She whispered trem- 
ulously, in that touching tone I had heard once be- 
fore on her lips, and which thrilled me again with the 
same emotion: 

" I would believe you. But what about papa " 

" He be hanged 1 " My emotion betrayed itself by 



86 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

the brutality of my tone. " IVe had enough of your 
papa. Are you so stupid as to imagine that I am 
frightened of him? He can't make me do anything." 

All that sounded feeble to me in the face of her 
ignorance. But I must conclude that the " accent of 
sincerity '^ has, as some people say, a really irresistible 
power. The effect was far beyond my hopes — and 
even beyond my conception. To watch the change in 
the girl was like watching a miracle — the gradual 
but swift relaxation of her tense glance, of her stiffened 
muscles, of every fibre of her body. That black, fixed 
stare into which I had read a tragic meaning more 
than once, in which I had found a sombre seduction, 
was perfectly empty now, void of all consciousness 
whatever, and not even aware any longer of my pres- 
ence; it had become a little sleepy, in the Jacobus 
fashion. 

But, man being a perverse animal, instead of re- 
joicing at my complete success, I beheld it with as- 
tounded and indignant eyes. There was something 
cynical in that unconcealed alteration, the true Ja- 
cobus shamelessness. I felt as though I had been 
cheated in some rather complicated deal into which I 
had entered against my better judgment Yes, 
cheated without any regard for, at least, the forms of 
decency. 

With an easy, indolent, and in its indolence supple, 
feline movement, she rose from the chair, so provok- 
ingly ignoring me now, that for very rage I held my 
ground within less than a foot of her. Leisurely and 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 81 

tranquil, behaving right before me with the ease of a 
person alone in a room, she extended her beautiful 
arms, with her hands clenched, her body swaying, her 
head thrown back a little, revelling contemptuously in 
a sense of relief, easing her limbs in freedom after all 
these days of crouching, motionless poses when she 
had been so furious and so afraid. 

All this with supreme indifference, incredible, of- 
fensive, exasperating, like ingratitude doubled with 
treachery. 

I ought to have been flattered, perhaps, but, on the 
contrary, my anger grew ; her movement to pass by me 
as if I were a wooden post or a piece of furniture, 
that unconcerned movement brought it to a head. 

I won't say I did not know what I was doing, but, 
certainly, cool reflection had nothing to do with the 
circumstance that next moment both mv arms were 
round her waist It was an impulsive action, as one 
snatches at something falling or escaping; and it had 
no hypocritical gentleness about it either. She had 
no time to make a sound, and the flrst kiss I planted 
on her closed lips was vicious enough to have been a 
bite. 

She did not resist, and of course I. did not stop at 
one. She let me go on, not as if she were inanimate 
— I felt her there, close against me, young, full of 
vigour, of life, a strong desirable creature, but as if 
she did not care in the least, in the absolute assurance 
of her safety, what I did or left undone. Our faces 
brought close together in this storm of haphazard 



88 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

caresses, her big, black, wide-open eyes looked into 
mine without the girl appearing either angry or pleased 
or moved in any way. In that steady gaze which 
seemed impersonally to watch my madness I could de- 
tect a slight surprise, perhaps — nothing more. I 
showered kisses upon her face and there did not seem 
to be any reason why this should not go on for ever. 

That thought flashed through my head, and I was 
on the point of desisting, when, all at once, she began 
to struggle with a sudden violence which all but freed 
her instantly, which revived my exasperation with her, 
indeed a fierce desire never to let her go any more. 
I tightened my embrace in time, gasping out: "No 
' — you don't ! " as if she were my mortal enemy. On 
her part not a word was said. Putting her hands 
against my chest, she pushed with all her might with- 
out succeeding to break the circle of my arms. Except 
that she seemed thoroughly awake now, her eyes gave 
me no clue whatever. To meet her black stare was 
like looking into a deep well, and I was totally unpre- 
pared for her change of tactics. Instead of trying to 
tear my hands apart, she flung herself upon my breast 
and with a downward, xmdulating, serpentine motion, 
a quick sliding dive, she got away from me smoothly. 
It was all very swift ; I saw her pick up the tail of her 
wrapper and run for the door at the end of the veran- 
dah not very gracefully. She appeared to be limping 
a little — and then she vanished; the door swung be- 
hind her so noiselessly that I could not believe it was 
completely closed. • I had a distinct suspicion of her 



A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 89 

black eye being at the crack to watch what I would do. 
I could not make up my mind whether to shake my fist 
in that direction or blow a kiss. 



VI 

Either would have been perfectly consistent with my 
feelings. I gazed at the door, hestitating, but in the 
end I did neither. The monition of some sixth sense 
— the sense of guilt, maybe, that sense which always 
acts too late, alas ! — warned me to look round ; and 
at once I became aware that the conclusion of this 
tumultuous episode was likely to be a matter of lively 
anxiety. Jacobus was standing in the doorway of the 
dining-room. How long he had been there it was 
impossible to guess; and remembering my struggle 
with the girl I thought he must have been its mute 
witness from beginning to end. But this supposition 
seemed almost incredible. Perhaps that impenetra- 
ble girl had heard him come in and had got away in 
time. 

He stepped on to the verandah in his usual manner, 
heavy-eyed, with glued lips. I marvelled at the girl's 
resemblance t > this man. Those long, Egyptian eyes, 
that low forehead of a stupid goddess, she had found 
in the sawdust of the circus ; but all the rest of the face, 
the design and the modelling, the rounded chin, the 
very lips — all that was Jacobus, fined down, more 
finished, more expressive. 

His thick hand fell on and grasped with force the 



90 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

back of a light chair (there were several standing 
about) and I perceived the chance of a broken head at 
the end of all this — most likely. My mortification 
was extreme. The scandal would be horrible; that 
was unavoidable. But how to act so as to satisfy my- 
self I did not know. I stood on my guard and at any 
rate faced him. There was nothing else for it. Of 
one thing I was certain, that, however brazen my atti- 
tude, it could never equal the characteristic Jacobus 
impudence. 

He gave me his melancholy, glued smile and sat 
down. I own I was relieved. The perspective of 
passing from kisses to blows had nothing particularly 
attractive in it. Perhaps — perhaps he had seen 
nothing? He behaved as usual, but he had never be- 
fore found me alone on the verandah. If he had 
alluded to it, if he had asked : " Where's Alice ? " or 
something of the sort, I would have been able to judge 
from the tone. He would give me no opportunity. 
The striking peculiarity was that he had never looked 
up at me yet. "He knows," I said to myself con- 
fidently. And my contempt for him relieved my dis- 
gust with myself. 

" You are early home," I remarked. 

" Things are very quiet ; nothing doing at the store 
to-day," he explained with a cast-down air. 

" Oh, well, you know, I am off," I said, feeling that 
this, perhaps, was the best thing to do. 

" Yes," he breathed out. " Day after to-morrow." 

This was not what I had meant; but as he gazed 



A SMILE OP FOETUNE 91 

persistently on the floor, I followed the direction of 
his glance. In the absolute stillness of the house we 
stared at the high-heeled slipper the girl had lost in 
her flight. We stared. It lay overturned. 

After what seemed a very long time to me, Jacobus 
hitched his chair forward, stooped with extended arm 
and picked it up. It looked a slender thing in his big, 
thick hands. It was not really a slipper, but a low 
shoe of blue, glazed kid, rubbed and shabby. It had 
straps to go over the instep, but the girl only thrust her 
feet in, after her slovenly manner. Jacobus raised 
his eyes from the shoe to look at me. 

" Sit down, Captain,'^ he said at last, in his subdued 
tona 

As if the sight of that shoe had renewed the spell, I 
gave up suddenly the idea of leaving the house there 
and then. It had become impossible. I sat down, 
keeping my eyes on the fascinating object. Jacobus 
turned his daughter's shoe over and over in his cush- 
ioned paws as if studying the way the thing was made. 
He contemplated the thin sole for a time; then glan- 
cing inside with an absorbed air: 

" I am glad I found you here, Captain." 

I answered this by some sort of grunt, watching him 
covertly. Then I added : " You wonH have much 
more of me now." 

He was still deep in the interior of that shoe on 
which my eyes too were resting. 

** Have you thought any more of this deal in pota- 
toes I spoke to you about the other day ? " 



92 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" No, I haven't," I answered curtly. He checked 
my movement to rise by an austere, commanding 
gesture of the hand holding that fatal shoe. I re- 
mained seated and glared at him. " You know I 
don't trade." 

" You ought to, Captain. You ought to." 

I reflected. If I left that house now I would never 
see the girl again. And I felt I must see her once 
more, if only for an instant. It was a need, not to be 
reasoned with, not to be disregarded. No, I did not 
want to go away. I wanted to stay for one more ex- 
perience of that strange provoking sensation and of 
indefinite desire, the habit of which had made me — 
me of all people ! — dread the prospect of going to sea. 

" Mr. Jacobus," I pronounced slowly. " Do you 
really think that upon the whole and taking various 
matters into consideration — I mean everything, do 
you understand? — it would be a good thing for me 
to trade, let us say, with you ? " 

I waited for a while. He went on looking at the 
shoe which he held now crushed in the middle, the 
worn point of the toe and the high heel protruding on 
each side of his heavy fist. 

" That will be all right," he said, facing me squarely 
at last. 

" Are you sure ? " 

" You'll find it quite correct, Captain." He had 
uttered his habitual phrases in his usual placid, breath- 
saving voice and stood my hard, inquisitive stare sleep- 
ily without as much as a wink. 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 93 

*^ Then let us trade/' I said, turning my shoulder to 
him. " I see you are bent on it." 

I did not want an open scandal, but I thought that 
outward decency may be bought too dearly at times. 
I included Jacobus, myself, the whole population of the 
island, in the same contemptuous disgust as though 
we had been partners in an ignoble transaction. And 
the remembered vision at sea, diaphanous and blue, of 
the Pearl of the Ocean at sixty miles off; the unsub- 
stantial, clear marvel of it as if evoked by the art of a 
beautiful and pure magic, turned into a thing of hor- 
rors too. Was this the fortune this vaporous and rare 
apparition had held for me in its hard heart, hidden 
within the shape as of fair dreams and mist? Was 
this my luck ? 

" I think " — Jacobus became suddenly audible after 
what seemed the silence of vile meditation — " that 
you might conveniently take some thirty tons. That 
would be about the lot. Captain." 

" Would it ? The lot ! I dare say it would be con- 
venient, but I haven't got enough money for that." 

I had never seen him so animated. 

" No ! " he exclaimed with what I took for the accent 
of grim menace. " That's a pity." He paused, then, 
unrelenting : " How much money have you got. Cap- 
tain?" he inquired with awful directness. 

It was my turn to face him squarely. I did so and 
mentioned the amount I could dispose of. And I per- 
ceived that he was disappointed. He thought it over, 
his calculating gaze lost in mine, for quite a long time 



94 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

before he came out in a thoughtful tone with the ra- 
pacious suggestion: 

"You could draw some more from your charterers. 
That would be quite easy, Captain.^' 

"No, I couldn't,^' I retorted brusquely. "Fve 
drawn my salary up to date, and besides, the ship's 
accounts are closed/' 

I was growing furious. I pursued : *^ And I'll tell 
you what: if I could do it I wouldn't'' Then throw- 
ing off all restraint, I added: "You are a bit too 
much of a Jacobus, Mr. Jacobus." 

The tone alone was insulting enough, but he remained 
tranquil, only a little puzzled, till something seemed 
to dawn upon him; but the Tinwonted light in his 
eyes died out instantly. As a Jacobus on his native 
heath, what a mere skipper chose to say could not 
touch him, outcast as he was. As a ship-chandler he 
could stand anything. All I caught of his mumble was 
a vague — " quite correct," than which nothing could 
have been more egregiously false at bottom — to my 
view, at least. But I remembered — I had never for- 
gotten — that I must see the girl. I did not mean 
to go. I meant to stay in the house till I had seen her 
once more. 

" Look here ! " I said finally. " I'll tell you what 
I'll do. I'll take as many of your confounded potatoes 
as my money will buy, on condition that you go off 
at once down to the wharf to see them loaded in the 
lighter and sent alongside the ship straight away. 
Take the invoice and a signed receipt with you. Here's 



A SMILE OF FORTUNE 95 

the key of my desk. Give it to Bums. He will pay 
you.'' 

He got up from his chair before I had finished speak- 
ing, but he refused to take the key. Bums would 
never do it. He wouldn't like to ask him even. 

" Well, then," I said, eyeing him slightingly, 
" there's nothing for it, Mr. Jacobus, but you must wait 
on board till I come off to settle with you." 

" That will be all right. Captain. I will go at once." 

He seemed at a loss what to do with the girl's shoe 
he was still holding in his fist. Finally, looking dully 
at me, he put it down on the chair from which he had 
risen. 

"And you, Captain? Won't you come along, too, 
just to see ^" 

" Don't bother about me. I'll take care of myself." 

He remained perplexed for a moment, as if trying 
to imderstand; and then his weighty: "Certainly, 
certainly, Captain," seemed to be the outcome of some 
sudden thought. His big chest heaved. Was it a 
sigh? As he went out to hurry off those potatoes he 
never looked back at me. 

I waited till the noise of his footsteps had died out 
of the dining-room, and I waited a little longer. Then 
turning towards the distant door I raised my voice 
along the verandah : 

"AUcel" 

Nothing answered me, not even a stir behind the 
door. Jacobus's house might have been made empty 
for me to make myself at home in. I did not call 



96 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

again. I had become aware of a great discouragement. 
I was mentally jaded, morally dejected, I turned to 
the garden again, sitting down with my elbows spread 
on the low balustrade, and took my head in my hands. 

The evening closed upon me. The shadows length- 
ened, deepened, mingled together into a pool of twi- 
light in which the flower-beds glowed like coloured 
embers; whiffs of heavy scent came to me as if the 
dusk of this hemisphere were but the dimness of a 
temple and the garden an enormous censer swinging 
before the altar of the stars. The colours of the blos- 
soms deepened, losing their glo.w one by one. 

The girl, when I turned my head at a slight noise, 
appeared to me very tall and slender, advancing with 
a swaying limp, a floating and uneven motion which 
ended in the sinking of her shadowy form into the 
deep low chair. And I don't know why or whence I 
received the impression that she had come too late. 
She ought to have appeared at my call. She ought to 
have ... It was as if a supreme opportunity had 
been missed. 

I rose and took a seat close to her, nearly opposite 
her arm-chair. Her ever discontented voice addressed 
me at once, contemptuously: 

" You are still here." 

I pitched mine low. 

"You have come out at last." 

" I came to look for my shoe — before they bring in 
the lights." 

It was her harsh, enticing whisper, subdued, not 



A SMILE OF POETUNE 91 

very steady, but its low tremulousness gave me no thrill 
now. I could only make out the oval of her face, 
her uncovered throat, the long, white gleam of her 
eyes. She was mysterious enough. Her hands were 
resting on the arms of the chair. But where was the 
mysterious and provoking sensation which was like 
the perfume of her flower-like youth ? I said quietly : 

" I have got your shoe here.^' She made no sound 
and I continued : " You had better give me your foot 
and I will put it on for you." 

She made no movement. I bent low down and 
groped for her foot under the flounces of the wrapper. 
She did not withdraw it and I put on the shoe, button- 
ing the instep-strap. It was an inanimate foot. I 
lowered it gently to the floor. 

" If you buttoned the strap you would not be losing 
your shoe. Miss Don't Care," I said, trying to be play- 
ful without conviction. I felt more like wailing over 
the lost illusion of vague desire, over the sudden con- 
viction ,that I would never find again near her the 
strange, half-evil, half-tender sensation which had 
given its acrid flavour to so many days, which had 
made her appear tragic and promising, pitiful and 
provoking. That was all over. 

"Your father picked it up," I said, thinking she 
may just as well be told of the fact. 

" I am not afraid of papa — by himself," she de- 
clared scornfully. 

" Oh 1 It's only in conjunction with his disrepu- 
table associates, strangers, the ' riff-raff of Europe ' as 



98 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

your charming aunt or great-annt says — men like me, 
for instance — that you ^^ 

" I am not afraid of you/' she snapped out. 

" That's because you don't know that I am now 
doing business with your father. Yes, I am in fact 
doing exactly what he wants me to do. IVe broken 
my promise to you. That's the sort of man I am. 
And now — aren't you afraid? If you believe what 
that dear, kind, truthful old lady says you ought to 
be.'' 

It was with imexpected modulated softness that she 
affirmed: 

" No. I'm not afraid." She hesitated. ..." Not 
now." 

" Quite right. You needn't be. I shall not see 
you again before I go to sea." I rose and stood near 
her chair. " But I shall often think of you in this old 
garden, passing imder the trees over there, walking 
between these gorgeous flower-beds. You must love 
this garden ^" 

" I love nothing." 

I heard in her sullen tone the faint echo of that 
resentfully tragic note which I had found once so pro- 
voking. But it left me unmoved except for a sudden 
and weary conviction of the emptiness of all things 
under Heaven. 

" Good-bye, Alice," I said. 

She did not answer, she did not move. To merely 
take her hand, shake it, and go away seemed impossi- 
ble, almost improper. I stooped without haste and 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 99 

pressed my lips to her smooth forehead. This was the 
moment when I realised clearly with a sort of terror 
my complete detachment from that unfortunate crea- 
ture. And as I lingered in that cruel self-knowledge 
I felt the light touch of her arms falling languidly on 
my neck and received a hasty, awkward, haphazard kiss 
which missed my lips. No 1 She was not afraid ; but 
I was no longer moved. Her arms slipped off my neck 
slowly, she made no sound, the deep wicker arm-chair 
creaked slightly ; only a sense of my dignity prevented 
me fleeing headlong from that catastrophic revelation. 

I traversed the dining-room slowly. I thought: 
She's listening to my footsteps ; she can't help it ; she'll 
hear me open and shut that door. And I closed it as 
gently behind me as if I had been a thief retreating 
with his ill-gotten booty. During that stealthy act I 
experienced the last touch of emotion in that house, at 
the thought of a giri I had left sitting there in the ob- 
scurity, with her heavy hair and empty eyes as black 
as the night itself, staring into the walled garden, 
silent, warm, odorous with the perfume of imprisoned 
flowers, which, like herself, were lost to sight in a worid 
buried in darkness. 

The narrow, ill-lighted, rustic streets I knew so well 
on my way to the harbour were extremely quiet. I 
felt in my heart that the further one ventures the bet- 
ter one imderstands how everything in our life is com- 
mon, short, and empty; that it is in seeking the 
imknown in our sensations that we discover how medi- 
ocre are our attempts and how soon defeated! Ja- 



100 



'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 



cobus's boatman was waiting at the steps witL _ ; 

usual air of readiness. He put me alongside c. . .-^ 
but did not give me his confidential " GuM.a-T-^ -^ 
sah," and, instead of shoving off at once, i ^ -.z^ 
holding by the ladder. r r£i ^". 

I was a thousand miles from comniciv^. —^ ^^-^i-: 
when on the dark quarter-deck Mr. Bui-. -: ^.^si'": 
rushed at me, stammering with excitcniL*.. - r ^rn 



been pacing the deck distractedly for i: ..^ • ^^-^ ^ 
my arrival. Just before sunset a light. , ^ 2 
potatoes had come alongside with that i^t-- .^ rsco: 
himself sitting on the pile of sacks. IIv-^ _2mmaxxvr jt 
immovable in the cabin. What was lL 
all ? Surely I did not 

" Yes, Mr. Bums, I did," I cut hi, ^ 
beginning to make gestures of despi 
that, too, by giving him the key of ■ 
ing him, in a tone which admitted 
go below at once, pay Mr. JacobiiV 
out of the ship. 

" I don't want to see hii 
climbing the poop-ladder. - 
Dropping on the seat of the 
to idle gazing at the light»^ 
black mass of the mountai] 
harbour. I never heard J' ,^fc3^»- -.afioierable 
every single sovereign of. "" jiiiima"- :o make 

I never heard anything^ mP ^i^ ^ looked 

Mr. Bums, unable to < ^^lAttA oi a pal^ 

— if it was 




A SMILt: OF FOETUNE 101 

truded upon me with his ridiculously angry lamenta- 
tions at my weakness and good nature. 

" Of course, there's plenty of room in the after- 
hatch. But they are sure to go rotten down there. 
Weill I never heard . . . seventeen tonsl I sup- 
pose I must hoist in that lot first thing to-morrow mom- 
ing." 

" I suppose you must. Unless you drop them over- 
board. But I'm afraid you can't do that. I wouldn't 
mind myself, but it's forbidden to throw rubbish into 
the harbour, you know." 

" That is the truest word you have said for many a 
day, sir — rubbish. That's just what I expect they 
are. Nearly eighty good gold sovereigns gone ; a pei- 
f ectly clean sweep of your drawer, sir. Bl'ess me if I 
understand ! " 

As it was impossible to throw the right light on this 
commercial transaction I left him to his lamentations 
and imder the impression that I was a hopeless fool. 
Next day I did not go ashore. For one thing, I had 
no money to go ashore with — no, not enough to buy 
a cigarette. Jacobus had made a clean sweep. But 
that was not the only reason. The Pearl of the Ocean 
had in a few short hours grown odious to me. And I 
did not want to meet any one. My reputation had 
suffered. I knew I was the object of unkind and sar- 
castic comments. 

The following morning at sunrise, just as our stern- 
fasts had been let go and the tug plucked us out from 



102 'TWIXT LAND AXD SEA 

between the buoySj I saw Jacobus standing up in hia 
boat. The nigger was pulling hard; several baskets 
of provisions for ships were stowed between the 
thwarts. The father of Alice was going his morning 
round. His countenance was tranquil and friendly. 
He raised his arm and shoiited something with great 
heartiness. But his voice was of the sort that doesn't 
carry any distance ; all I could catch faintly, or rather 
guess at, were the words " next time " and " quite cor- 
rect." And it was only of these last that I was cer- 
tain. Kaising my arm perfunctorily for all response, 
I turned away. I rather resented the familiarity of 
the thing. Hadn't I settled accounts finally with him 
by means of that potato bargain i 

This being a harbour story it is not my purpose to 
Bpeak of our passage. I was glad enough to be at sea, 
hut not with the gladness of old days. Pormerly I 
had no memories to take away with me. I shared in 
the blessed forgetfulness of sailors, that forgetfulnesa 
natural and invincible, which resembles innocence in 
BO far that it prevents self-examination. Now how- 
ever I remembered the girL During the first few days 
I was for ever questioning myself as to the nature of 
facts and sensations connected with her person and 
with mj conduct. 

And I must say also that Mr. Bums' intolerable 
fussing with those potatoes was not calculated to make 
me forget the part which I had played. He looked 
upon it as a purely commercial transaction of a par- 
ticularly foolish kind, and hia devotion — if it vraa 



A SMILE OF FOETUNE 103 

devotion and not mere cussedness as I came to regard 
it before long — inspired him with a zeal to minimise 
my loss as much as possible. Oh, yesl He took care 
of those infamous potatoes with a vengeance, as the 
saying goes. 

Everlastingly, there was a tackle over the after- 
hatch and everlastingly the watch on deck were pulling 
up, spreading out, picking over, rebagging, and lower- 
ing down again, some part of that lot of potatoes. My 
bargain with all its remotest associations, mental and 
visual — the garden of flowers and scents, the girl with 
her provoking contempt and her tragic loneliness of a 
hopeless castaway — was everlastingly dangled before 
my eyes, for thousands of miles along the open sea. 
And as if by a satanic refinement of irony it was ac- 
companied by a most awful smell. Whiflfs from de- 
caying potatoes pursued me on the poop, they mingled 
with my thoughts, with my food, poisoned my very 
dreams. They made an atmosphere of corruption for 
the ship. 

I remonstrated with Mr. Bums about this excessive 
care. I would have been well content to batten the 
hatch down and let them perish under the deck. 

That perhaps would have been unsafe. The horrid 
emanations might have flavoured the cargo of sugar. 
They seemed strong enough to taint the very ironwork. 
In addition Mr. Bums made it a personal matter. He 
assured me he knew how to treat a cargo of potatoes 
at sea — had been in the trade as a boy, he said. He 
meant to make my loss as small as possible. What 



104 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

between his devotion — it must have been devotion — 
and his vanity, I positively dared not give him the 
order to throw my commercial venture overboard. I 
believe he would have refused point blank to obey my 
lawful command. An unprecedented and comical sit- 
uation would have been created with which I did not 
feel equal to deal. 

I welcomed the coming of bad weather as no sailor 
had ever done. When at last I hove the ship to, to 
pick up the pilot outside of Port Philip Heads, the 
after-hatch had not been opened for more than a week 
and I might have believed that no such thing a6 a 
potato had ever been on board. 

It was an abominable day, raw, blustering, with 
great squalls of wind and rain ; the pilot, a cheery per- 
son, looked after the ship and chatted to me, streaming 
from head to foot; and the heavier the lash of the 
downpour the more pleased with himself and every- 
thing around him he seemed to be. He rubbed his wet 
hands with a satisfaction, which to me, who had stood 
that kind of thing for several days and nigKts, seemed 
inconceivable in any non-aquatic creature. 

" You seem to enjoy getting wet, Pilot," I remarked. 

He had a bit of land roimd his house in the suburbs 
and it was of his garden he was thinking. At the 
sound of the word garden, unheard, unspoken for so 
many days, I had a vision of gorgeous colour, of sweet 
scents, of a girlish figure crouching in a chair. Yes. 
That was a distinct emotion breaking into the peace I 
had found in the sleepless anxieties of my responsi- 



A SMILE or rOETUNE 105 

bility during a week of dangerous bad weather. The 
Colony, the pilot explained, had suffered from unparal- 
leled drought. This was the first decent drop of water 
they had had for seven months. The root crops were 
lost. And, trying to be casual, but with visible inter- 
est, he asked me if I had perchance any potatoes to 
spare. 

Potatoes! I had managed to forget them. In a 
moment I felt plunged into corruption up to my neck. 
Mr. Bums was making eyes at me behind the pilot's 
back. 

Finally, he obtained a ton, and paid ten pounds for 
it. This was twice the price of my bargain with Ja- 
cobus. The spirit of covetousness woke up in me. 
That night, in harbour, before I slept, the Custom 
House galley came alongside. While his imderlings 
were putting seals on the store-rooms, the officer in 
charge took me aside confidentially. " I say. Captain, 
you donH happen to have any potatoes to sell." 

Clearly there was a potato famine in the land. I 
let him have a ton for twelve pounds and he went away 
joyfully. That night I dreamt of a pile of gold in the 
form of a grave in which a girl was buried, and woke 
up callous with greed. On calling at my ship-brok- 
er^s office, that man, after the usual business had been 
transacted, pushed his spectacles up on his forehead. 

" I was thinking. Captain, that coming from the 
Pearl of the Ocean you may have some potatoes to sell." 

I said negligently : " Oh, yes, 1 could spare you a 
ton. Fifteen pounds." 



106 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

He exclaimed : " I say I " But after studying my ' 
face for awhile accepted my terms with a faint grimace. 
It seems that these people could not exist without po- 
tatoes. I could, I didn't want to see a potato as long 
as I lived ; hut the demon of lucre had taken posaeesion , 
of me. How the news got ahout I don't know, but, ^ 
returning on board rather late, I found a small group j 
of men of the coster type hanging about the waist, 
while Mr. Bums walked to and fro the quarterdeck j 
loftily, keeping a triumphant eye on them. They had 
come to huy potatoes. I 

" These chaps have been waiting here in the sun for 1 
hours," Bums whispered to me excitedly. " They 
have drunk the water-cask dry. Don't you throw away I 
your chances, sir. You are too good-natured." r 

I selected a man with thick legs and a man with a I 
cast in his eye to negotiate with; simply because they 
were easily distinguishable from the rest. " You have 
the money on you ? " I inquired, before taking tbem j 
down into the cabin. 

" Yes, sir," they answered in one voice, slapping 
their pockets. I liked their air of quiet determination. ' 
Long before the end of the day all the potatoes were 1 
Bold at ahout three times the price I had paid for them. 
Mr. Bums, feverish and exulting, congratulated bim- 
^If on his skilful care of my commercial venture, but ' 
hinted plainly that I ought to have made more of it. 

That night I did not sleep very well. I thought of J 
Jacobus by fits and starts, between snatches of dreama " 



A SMILE OF rOETUNE 107 

concerned with castaways starving on a desert island 
covered with flowers. It was extremely nnpleasant. 
In the morning, tired and nnref reshed, I sat down and 
wrote a long letter to my owners, giving them a care- 
fully-thought-out scheme for the ship's employment in 
the East and about the China Seas for the next two 
years. I spent the day at that task and felt somewhat 
more at peace when it was done. 

Their reply came in due course. They were greatly 
struck with my project; but considering that, notwith- 
standing the unfortunate difficulty with the bags 
(which they trusted I would know how to guard 
against in the future), the voyage showed a very fair 
profit, they thought it would be better to keep the ship 
in the sugar trade — at least for the present. 

I turned over the page and read on : 

'*We have had a letter from our good friend Mr. 
Jacobus. We are pleased to see how well you have 
hit it off with him; for, not to speak of his assistance 
in the unfortimate matter of the bags, he writes us 
that shonlcf you, by ueing all possible dispatch, manage 
to bring the ship back early in the season he would be 
able to give us a good rate of freight. We have no 
doubt that your best endeavours . . . etc. . . . etc." 

I dropped the letter and sat motionless for a long 
time. Then I wrote my answer (it was a short one) 
and went ashore myself to post it. But I passed one 
letter-box, then another, and in the end found myself 
going up Collins Street with the letter still in my 



108 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

pocket — against my heart. Collins Street at four 
o'clock in the afternoon is not exactly a desert sollitude ; 
but I had never felt more isolated from the rest of 
mankind as when I walked that day its crowded pave- 
inent, battling desperately with my thoughts and feel- 
ing already vanquished. 

There came a moment when the awful tenacity of 
Jacobus, the man of one passion and of one idea, ap- 
peared to me almost heroic. He had not given me 
up. He had gone again to his odious brother. And 
then he appeared to me odious himself. Was it for 
his own sake or for the sake of the poor girl ? And on 
that last supposition the memory of the kiss which 
missed my lips appalled me ; for whatever he had seen, 
or guessed at, or risked, he knew nothing of that. Un- 
less the girl had told him. How could I go back to 
fan that fatal spark with my cold breath? No, no, 
that unexpected kiss had to be paid for at its full price. 

At the first letter-box I came to I stopped and reach- 
ing into my breast-pocket I took out the letter — it 
was as if I were plucking out my very heart — and 
dropped it through the slit. Then I went straight on 
board. 

I wondered what dreams I would have that night; 
but as it turned out I did not sleep at all. At break- 
fast I informed Mr. Bums that I had resigned my 
command. 

He dropped his knife and fork and looked at me 
with indignation. 

" You have, sir I I thought you loved the ship." . 



A SMILE OF rOKTUNE 109 

" So I do, Bums," I said. " But the fact is that the 
Indian Ocean and everything that is in it has lost its 
charm for me. I am going home as passenger by the 
Suez Canal." 

" Everything that is in it," he repeated angrily. 
" I've never heard anybody talk like this. And to tell 
you the truth, sir, all the time we have been together 
I've never quite made you out. What's one ocean 
more than another ? Charm, indeed 1 " 

He was really devoted to me, I believe. But he 
cheered up when I told him that I had recommended 
him for my successor. 

" Anyhow," he remarked, " let people say what they 
like, this Jacobus has served your turn. I must ad- 
mit that this potato business has paid extremely well. 
Of course, if only you had ^" 

'^ Yes, Mr. Bums," I interrupted. " Quite a smile 
of fortime." 

But I could not tell him that it was driving me out 
of the ship I had learned to love. And as I sat heavy- 
hearted at that parting, seeing all my plans destroyed, 
my modest future endangered — for this command was 
like a foot in the stirrup for a young man — he gave up 
completely for the first time his critical attitude. 

" A wonderful piece of luck 1 " he said. 



THE SECEET SHARER 

AN EPISODE PEOM THE COAST 



111 



THE SECRET SHARER 



ON my right hand there were lines of fishing-stakes 
resembling a mysterious system of half-sub- 
merged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division 
of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as 
if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fisher- 
men now gone to the other end of the ocean ; for there 
was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye 
could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, sug- 
gesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, 
had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked 
solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even 
the track of light from the westering sun shone 
smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of 
an imperceptible ripple. And when I turned my head 
to take a parting glance at the tug which had just left 
us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line 
of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, 
with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one levelled 
floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome 
of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to 
the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one 
on each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, 

marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just 

113 



114 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 

left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward 
journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger and 
loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great Paknam 
pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye could rest 
from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep 
of the horizon. Here and there gleams as of a few 
scattered pieces of silver marked the windings of the 
great river; and on the nearest of them, just within 
the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became 
lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as though 
the impassive earth had swallowed her up without an 
effort, without a tremor. My eye followed the light 
cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the 
plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, 
hut always fainter and farther away, till I lost it at last 
behind the mitre-shaped hill of the great pagoda. And 
then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the 
Head of the Gulf of Siam. 

She floated at the starting-point of a long journey, 
very still in an immense stillness, the shadows of her 
spars flung far to the eastward by the setting siin. At 
that moment I was alone on her decks. There was 
not a sound in her — and around us nothing moved, 
nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in 
the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless 
pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed 
,to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous en- 
terprise, the appointed task of both our existences to i 
be carried out, far from all human eyea, with only akj 
■and sea for spectators and for judges. 



THE SECRET SHARER 115 

There must have been some glare in the air to inter- 
fere with one's sight, because it was only just before the 
sun left us that my roaming eyes made out beyond the 
highest ridge of the principal islet of the group some- 
thing which did away with the solemnity of perfect 
solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and 
with tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out 
above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet, my hand 
resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder 
of a trusted friend. But, with all that multitude of 
celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of 
quiet communion with her was- gone for good. And 
there were also disturbing sounds by this time — 
voices, footsteps forward; the steward flitted along the 
main-deck, a busily ministering spirit; a hand-bell 
tinkled urgently under the poop-deck. . . . 

I found my two officers waiting for me near the 
supper table, in the lighted cuddy. We sat down at 
once, and as I helped the chief mate, I said : 

" Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside 
the islands? I saw her mastheads above the ridge as 
the sun went down." 

He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a 
terrible growth of whisker, and emitted his usual 
ejaculations: "Bless my soul, sir! You don't say 
so!" 

My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young 
man, grave beyond his years, I thought; but as our 
eyes happened to meet I detected a slight quiver on 
his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part 



116 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

to encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be 
said, too, that I knew very little of my officers. In 
consequence of certain events of no particular signifi- 
cance, except to myself, I had been appointed to the 
command only a fortnight before. Neither did I 
know much of the hands forward. All these people 
had been together for eighteen months or so, and my 
position was that of the only stranger on board. I 
mention this because it has some bearing on what is to 
follow. But what I felt most was my being a stranger 
to the ship; and if all the truth must be told, I was 
somewhat of a stranger to myself. The youngest man 
on board (barring the second mate), and untried as 
yet by a position of the fullest responsibility, I was 
willing to take the adequacy of the others for granted. 
They had simply to be equal to their tasks ; but I won- 
dered how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal 
conception of one's own personality every man sets up 
for himself secretly. 

Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible 
effect of collaboration on the part of his round eyes 
and frightful whiskers, was trying to evolve a theory of 
the anchored ship. His dominant trait was to take all 
things into earnest consideration. He was of a pains- 
taking turn of mind. As he used to say, he " liked to 
account to himself" for practically everything that 
came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion he had 
found in his cabin a week before. The why and the 
wherefore of that scorpion — how it got on board and 



THE SECRET SHAEEE 117 

came to select his room rather than the pantry (which 
was a dark place and more what a scorpion would be 
partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown 
itself in the inkwell of his writing-desk — had exer- 
cised him infinitely. The ship within the islands was 
much more easily accounted for; and just as we were 
about to rise from table he made his pronouncement. 
She was, he doubted not, a ship from home lately ar- 
rived. Probably she drew too much water to cross the 
bar except at the top of spring tides. Therefore she 
went into that natural harbour to wait for a few days 
in preference to remaining in an open roadstead. 

" That's so," confirmed the second mate, suddenly, 
in his slightly hoarse voice. " She draws over twenty 
feet. She's the Liverpool ship Sephora with a cargo 
of coal. Hundred and twenty-three days from 
Cardiff." 

We looked at him in surprise. 

" The tugboat skipper told me when he came on • 
board for your letters, sir," explained the young man. 
'^ He expects to take her up the river the day after 
to-morrow." 

After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his 
information he slipped out of the cabin. The mate 
observed regretfully that he " could not account for 
that young fellow's whims." What prevented him tell- 
ing us all about it at once, he wanted to know. 

I detained him as he was making a move. For the 
last two days the crew had had plenty of hard work, 
and the night before they had very little sleep. I felt 



118 'TWIXT lAKD AND SEA 



1 



painfully that I — a stranger — was doing something 
unusual when I directed him to let all hands turn in 
■without setting an anchor-watch. I proposed to keep 
on deck mjaelf till one o'clock or thereabouts. I 
would get the second mate to relieve me at that hour. 

" He will turn out the cook and the steward at four," 
I concluded, " and then give you a call. Of course at 
the slightest sign of any sort of wind we'll have the 
hands up and make a start at once." 

He concealed his astonishment. " Very well, air." 
Outside the cuddy he put his head in the second mate's 
door to inform him of raj unheard-of caprice to take 
a five hours' anchor-watch on myself. I heard the 
other raise his voice incredulously — " What ? The 
captain himself ? " Then a few more murmurs, a door 
closed, then another. A few moments later I went on 
deck. 

My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had 
prompted that unconventional arrangement, as if I had 
expected in those solitary hours of the night to get on | 
terms with the ship of which I knew nothing, manned 
by men of whom I knew very little more. Fast along- 
side a wharf, littered like any ship in port with a 
tangle of unrelated things, invaded by unrelated shore 
people, I had hardly seen her yet properly. Now, as 
ahe lay cleared for sea, the stretch of her main-deck i 
seemed to me very fine under the stars. Very fine, ] 
very roomy for her size, and very inviting. I de- 
scended the poop and paced the waist, my mind pictur- 
ing to myself the coming passage through the Malay , 



THE SECRET SHAEER 119 

Archipelago, down the Indian Ocean, and up the At- 
lantic. All its phases were familiar enough to me, 
every characteristic, all the alternatives which were 
likely to face me on the high seas - everything ! . . . 
• except the novel responsibility of command. But I 
V took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship 
was Jike other ships, the men like other men, and that 
the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises ex- 
^ pressly for my discomfiture. 

Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I bethought 
myself of a cigar and went below to get it. All was 
still down there. Everybody at the after end of the 
ship was sleeping profoundly. I came out again on 
the qnarter-deck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping-suit 
on that warm breathless night, barefooted, a glowing 
cigar in my teeth, and, going forward, I was met by 
. the profound silence of the fore end of the ship. Only 
[ as I passed the door of the forecastle I heard a deep, 
quiet, trustful sigh of some sleeper inside. And 
suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as 
compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of 
that untempted life presenting no disquieting prob- 
lems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the 
absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the 
singleness of its purpose. 

The riding-light in the fore-rigging burned with a 
clear, untroubled, as if symbolic, flame, confident and 
bright in the mysterious shades of the night. Passing 
on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I ob- 
served that the rope side-ladder, put over, no doubt, 



120 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away 
our letters, had not been hauled in as it should have 
been. I became annoyed at this, for exactitude in 
small matters is the very soul of discipline. Then I 
reflected that I had myself peremptorily dismissed my 
officers from duty, and by my own act had prevented 
the anchor-watch being formally set and things prop- 
erly attended to. I asked myself whether it was vdse 
ever to interfere with the established routine of duties 
even from the kindest of motives. My action might 
have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew 
how that absurdly whiskered mate would " account " 
for my conduct, and what the whole ship thought of 
that informality of their new captain. I was vexed 
with myself. 

Not from compunction certainly, but, as it were 
mechanically, I proceeded to get the ladder in myself. 
Now a side-ladder of that sort is a light affair and 
comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug, which should have 
brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon my 
body in a totally unexpected jerk. What the devil! 
... I was so astounded by the immovableness of that 
ladder that I remained stock-still, trying to account 
for it to myself like that imbecile mate of mine. In 
the end, of course, I put my head over the rail. 

The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow 
on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I 
saw at once something elongated and pale floating 
very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess 
a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed 



THE SECRET SHAREE 121 

to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, 
flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive, silent 
play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a 
gasp I saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long 
legs, a broad livid back immersed right up to the neck 
in a greenish cadaverous glow. One hand, awash, 
clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was com- 
plete but for the head. A headless corpse ! The cigar 
dropped out of my gaping mouth with a tiny plop and 
a short hiss quite audible in the absolute stillness of all 
things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up 
his face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship's 
side. But even then I could only barely make out 
down there the shape of his black-haired head. How- 
ever, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensa- 
tion which had gripped me about the chest to pass off. 
The moment of vain exclamations was past, too. I 
only climbed on the spare spar and leaned over the 
rail as far as I could, to briuff my eyes nearer to that 
mystery floating alongside. 

As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, 
the sea-lightning played about his limbs at every stir; 
and he appeared in it ghastly, silvery, fish-like. He 
remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion 
to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable 
that he should not attempt to come on board, and 
strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not 
want to. And my first words were prompted by just 
that troubled incertitude. 

" What's the matter ? " I asked in my ordinary tone, 



122 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

speaking down to the face upturned exactly under 
mine. 

" Cramp," it answered, no louder. Then slightly 
anxious, " I say, no need to call any one/' 

" I was not going to," I said. 

" Are you alone on deck ? " 

" Yes." 

I had somehow the impression that he was on the 
point of letting go the ladder to swim away beyond 
my ken — mysterious as he came. But, for the mo- 
ment, this being appearing as if he had risen from the 
bottom of the sea (it was certainly the nearest land to 
the ship) wanted only to know the time. I told him. 
And he, down there, tentatively: 

" I suppose your captain's turned in ? '' 

" I am sure he isn't," I said. 

He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard 
something like the low, bitter murmur of doubt, 
" What's the good i " His next words came out with 
a hesitating effort. 

" Look here, my man. Could you call him out 
quietly ? " 

I thought the time had come to declare myself. 

"J am the captain." 

I heard a " By Jove ! " whispered at the level of the 
water. The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of 
the water all about his limbs, his other hand seized the 
ladder. 

" My name's Leggatt." 

The voice was calm and resolute. A good voic6> 



THE SECRET SHAEER 123 

The self-possession of that man had somehow induced 
a corresponding state in myself. It was very quietly 
that I remarked : 

" You must be a good swimmer." 

" Yes. I've been in the water practically since nine 
o'clock. The question for me now is whether I am 
to let go this ladder and go on swimming till I sink 
from exhaustion, or — to come on board here." 

I felt this was no mere formula of desperate speech, 
but a real alternative in the view of a strong soul. I 
should have gathered from this that he was young; 
indeed, it is only the young who are ever confronted 
by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure in- 
tuition on my part. A mysterious communication 
was established already between us two — in the face 
of that silent, darkened tropical sea. I was young, 
too; young enough to make no comment. The man 
in the water began suddenly to climb up the ladder, and 
I hastened away from the rail to fetch some clothes. 

Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in 
the lobby at the foot of the stairs. A faint snore came 
through the closed door of the chief mate's room. The 
second mate's door was on the hook, but the darkness 
in there was absolutely soundless. He, too, was 
young and could sleep like a stona Remained the stew- 
ard, but he was not likely to wake up before he was 
called. I got a sleeping-suit out of my room and, 
<?oming back on deck, saw the naked man from the 
sea sitting on the main-hatch, glimmering white in the 
darkness, his elbows on his knees and bis head in his 



124 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

hands. In a moment lie had concealed his damp body 
in a sleeping-suit of the same grey-stripe pattern as the 
one I was wearing and followed me like my double on 
the poop. Together we moved right aft, barefooted, 
silent. 

" What is it ? " I asked in a deadened voice, taking 
the lighted lamp out of the binnacle, and raising it to 
his face. 

" An ugly business." 

He had rather regular features ; a good mouth ; light 
eyes under somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth, 
square forehead; no growth on his cheeks; a small, 
brown moustache, and a well-shaped, round chin. 
His expression was concentrated, meditative, under 
the inspecting light of the lamp I held up to his face ; 
such as a man thinking hard in solitude might wear. 
My sleeping-suit was just right for his size. A well- 
knit young fellow of twenty-five at most. He caught 
his lower lip with the edge of white, even teeth. 

" Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. 
The warm, heavy tropical night closed upon his head 
again. 

" There's a ship over there," he murmured. 

" Yes, I know. The Sephora. Did you know of 
us?" 

" Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of her 

^" He paused and corrected himself. " I 

should say I was/^ 

"Aha! Something wrong?" 

"Yes, Very wrong indeed, I've killed a man*" 



THE SECRET SHAEER 125 

"What do you mean? Just now?'' 

"No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine 
south. When I say a man ^^ 

" Fit of temper/' I suggested, confidently. 

The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod 
imperceptibly above the ghostly grey of my sleeping- 
suit. It was, in the night,- as though I had been faced 
by my own reflection in the depths of a sombre and 
immense mirror. 

" A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Con- 
way boy," murmured my double, distinctly. 

" You're a Conway boy ? " 

" I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly . . . 
" Perhaps you too ^" 

It was so; but being a couple of years older I had 
left before he joined. After a quick interchange of 
dates a silence fell; and I thought suddenly of my 
absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the " Bless 
my soul — you don't say so" type of intellect. My 
double gave me an inkling of his thoughts by saying: 

" My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see me 
before a judge and jury on that charge ? For myself 
I can't see the necessity. There are fellows that an 

angel from heaven And I am not that. He was 

one of those creatures that are just simmering all the 
time with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils 
that have no business to live at all. He wouldn't do 
his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do theirs. But 
what's the good of talking! You know well enough 
the sort of ill-conditioned snarling cur " 



126 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as 
identical as our clothes. And I knew well enough the 
pestiferous danger of such a character where there are 
no means of legal repression. And I knew well I 
enough also that my double there was no homicidal j 
ruffian. I did not think of asking him for details, 
and he told me the story roughly in brusque, discon- 
nected sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all go- 
ing on as though I were myself inside that other sleep- 
ing-suit. 

It happened while we were setting a reefed fore- 
, at dusk. Keefed foresail 1 You imderstand the J] 
sort of weather. The only sail we had left to keep the 
ship running; so you may guess what it had been like \ 
for days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me 
Bome of his cursed insolence at the sheet. I tell you 
I was overdone with this terrific weather that seemed 
to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you — and a deep 
ship. I believe the fellow himself was half crazed 
with funk. It was no time for gentlemanly reproof, 
BO I turned round and felled him like an os. He up 
and at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for 
the ship. Ail hands saw it coming and took to the 
rigging, but I had him by the throat, and went on 
shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling, 
' Look out I look out ! ' Then a crash as if the sky 
had fallen on my head. They say that for over ten 
minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the ship — 
just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head 
and of the poop all awash driving along in a smother 



m 



J 



THE SECEET SHAEER 127 

of foam. It was a miracle that they found us, 
jammed together behind the forebits. It's clear that 
I meant business, because I was holding him by the 
throat still when they picked us up. He was black in 
the face. It was too much for them. It seems they 
rushed us aft together, gripped as we were, screaming 
* Murder I ' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the 
cuddy. And the ship running for her life, touch and 
go all the time, any minute her last in a sea fit to turn 
your hair grey only a-looking at it. I understand that 
the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them. 
The man had been deprived of sleep for more than a 
week, and to have this sprung on him at the height of 
a furious gale nearly drove him out of his mind. I 
wonder they didn't fling me overboard after getting 
the carcass of their precious ship-mate out of my fingers. 
They had rather a job to separate us, IVe been told. 
A suflBciently fierce story to make an old judge and a 
respectable jury sit up a bit. The first thing I heard 
when I came to myself was the maddening howling of 
that endless gale, and on that the voice of the old man. 
He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face 
out of his sou'wester. 

" ' Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can 
act no longer as chief mate of this ship.' " 

His care to subdue his voice made it sound monot- 
onous. He rested a hand on the end of the skylight 
to steady himself with, and all that time did not stir 
a limb, so far as I could see. " Nice little tale for a 
quiet tea-party," he concluded in the same tone. 



128 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

One of my . hands, too, rested on the end of the 
skylight; neither did I stir a limb, so far as I knew.^' 
We stood less than a foot from each other. It oc- • 
curred to me that if old "Bless my soul — you don't |' 
say so " were to put his head up the companion andj^ 
catch sight of us, he would think he was seeing double, 
or imagine himself come upon a scene of weird witch-^i 
craft; the strange captain having a quiet confabulation 
by the wheel with his own grey ghost. I became veiy 
much concerned to prevent anything of the sort. I 
heard the other's soothing undertone. 

" My father's a parson in Norfolk,'' it said. Evi- 
dently he had forgotten he had told me this important 
fact before. Truly a nice little tale. 

" You had better slip down into my stateroom now," 
I said, moving off stealthily. My double followed my 
movements ; our bare feet made no sound ; I let him in, 
closed the door with care, and, after giving a call to 
the second mate, returned on deck for my relief. 

" Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when 
he approached. 

" No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his 
hoarse voice, with just enough deference, no more, 
and barely suppressing a yawn. 

" Well, that's all you have to look out for. You 
have got you-r orders." 

" Yes, sir." 

I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take 
up his position face forward with his elbow in the rat- 
lines of the mizzen-rigging before I went below. The 



THE SECEET SHAEEE 129 

maters faint snoring was still going on peacefully. 
The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which 
stood a vase with flowers, a polite attention from the 
ships' provision merchant — the last flowers we should 
see for the next three months at the very least. Two 
bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetric- 
ally, one on each side of the rudder-casing. Every- 
thing was as before in the ship — except that two of 
her captain's sleeping-suits were simultaneously in use, 
one motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very 
still in the captain's stateroom. 

It must be explained here that my cabin had the 
form of the capital letter L the door being within the 
angle and opening into the short part of the letter. A 
couch was to the left, the bed-place to the right; my 
writing-desk and the chronometers' table faced the door. 
But any one opening it, unless he stepped right inside, 
had no view of what I call the long (or vertical) part 
of the letter. It contained some lockers surmounted 
by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two, 
caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks. There 
was at the bottom of that part a door opening into my 
bath-room, which could be entered also directly from 
the saloon. But that way was never used. 

The mysterious arrival had discovered the advan- 
tage of this particular shape. Entering my room, 
lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp svning on 
gimbals above my writing-desk, I did not see him any- 
where till he stepped out quietly from behind th^ QP^itg 
bung in the recessed part. 



130 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" I heard somebody moving about, and went in there J 
at once," be whispered, 

I, too, spoke under my breath, 

" Nobody is likely to come in here without knock- 
ing and getting permission." 

He nodded. His face was thin and the eunbum 1 
faded, as though he had been ill. And- no wonder. 
He had been, I beard presently, kept under arrest i 
his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there wi 
nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression. He 
■was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning I 
over my bed-place, whispering aide by aide, with our j 
dark beada together and our backa to the door, any- ■ 
body bold enough to opt-n it stealthily would have i 
been treated to the uncanny sight of a double captain 
busy talking in whispers with his other self, 

" But all thia doesn't tell me how you came to hang 
on to our side-ladder," I inquired, in tlie hardly audi- 
ble murmurs we used, after he had told me something I 
more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the . 
bad weather was over. 

" When wo sighted Java Head I had had time to 
think all those matters out aeveral times over. I had i 
six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only an hour ' 
or ao every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck." . 

He whiapered, his arms folded on the side of my 
bed-place, staring through the open port. And I could , 
imagine perfectly the manner of this thinking out — 
a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of 
whicL I should have been perfectly incapable. 



J 



THE SECRET SHAEER 131 

" I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with 
the land," he continued, so low that I had to strain 
my hearing, near as we were to each other, shoulder 
touching shoulder almost. ^^ So I asked to speak to 
the old man. He always seemed very sick when he 
came to see me — as if he could not look me in the face. 
You know, that foresail saved the ship. She was too 
deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was 
I that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. 
When I had him in my cabin — he stood by the door 
looking at me as if I had the halter around my neck 
already — I asked him right away to leave my cabin 
door unlocked at night while the ship was going 
through Sunda Straits. There would be the Java 
coast within two or three miles, off Angier Point. I 
wanted nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming 
my second year in the Conway." 

" I can believe it," I breathed out. 

" God only knows why they locked me in every 
night. To see some of their faces you'd have thought 
they were afraid I'd go about at night strangling peo- 
ple. Am I a murdering brute? Do I look it? By 
Jove! if I had been he wouldn't have trusted himself 
like that into my room. You'll say I might have 
chucked him aside and bolted out, there and then — it 
was- dark already. Well, no. And for the same reason 
I wouldn't think of trying to smash the door. There 
would have been a rush to stop me at the noise, and 
I did not mean to get into a confounded scrimmage 
Somebody else might have got killed — for I woulc 



132 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

not have broken out only to get chucked back, and I did 
not want any more of that work. He refused, looking • 
more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men, and . 
also of that old second mate of his who had been sail- | 
ing with him for years — a grey-headed old humbug; 1 
and his steward, too, had been with him devil knows ' 
how long — seventeen years or more — a dogmatic -. 
sort of loafer who hated me like poison, just because | 
I was the chief mate. No chief mate ever made more I 
than one voyage in the Sephora, you know. Those two [ 
old chaps ran the ship. Devil only knows what the \ 
skipper wasn't afraid of (all his nerve went to pieces , 
altogether in that hellish spell of bad weather we had) 
— of what the law would do to him — of his wife, per- 
haps. Oh, yes ! she's on bpard. Though I don't think 
she would have meddled. She would have been only 
too glad to have me out of the ship in any way. The 
^ brand of Cain ' business, don't you see. That's all 
right. I was ready enough to go off wandering on 
the face of the earth — and that was price enough to 
pay for an Abel of that sort. Anyhow, he wouldn't 
listen to me. ^ This thing must take its course. I 
represent the law here.' He was shaking like a leaf. 
' So you won't ? ' ^ No ! ' ^ Then I hope you will be 
able to sleep on that,' I said, and turned my back on 
him. ^ I wonder that you can,' cries he, and locks the 
door. 

" Well, after that, I couldn't. Not very well. That 
was three weeks ago. We have had a slow passage 
through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata for teo 



THE SECEET SHAEER 133 

days. When we anchored here they thought, I sup- 
pose, it was all right. The nearest land (and that's 
five miles) is the ship's destination; the consul would 
soon set about catching me ; and there would have been 
no object in bolting to these islets there. I don't sup- 
pose there's a drop of water on them. I don't know 
.how it was, but to-night that steward, after bringing 
me my supper, went out to let me eat it, and left the 
door unlocked. And I ate it — all there was, too. 
After I had finished I strolled out on the quarter-deck. 
I don't know that I meant to do anything. A breath 
of fresh air was all I wanted, I believe. Then a sud- 
den temptation came over me. I kicked off my slip- 
pers and was in the water before I had made up my 
mind fairly. Somebody heard the splash and they 
raised an awful hullabaloo. ^He's gone! Lower the 
boats! He's committed suicide! No, he's swim- 
ming.' Certainly I was swimming. It's not so easy 
for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by drowning. 
I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the 
ship's side. I heard them pulling about in the dark, 
hailing, and so on, but after a bit they gave up. 
Everything quieted down and the anchorage became 
as still as death. I sat down on a stone and began to 
think. I felt certain they would start searching for 
me at daylight. There was no place to hide on those 
stony things — and if there had been, what would have 
been the good? But now I was clear of that ship, I 
was not going back. So after a while I took off all 
my clothes, tied them up in a bundle with a stone 



134 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

inside, and dropped them in the deep water on the 
outer side of that islet. That was suicide enough for 
me. Let them think what they liked, but I didn't 
mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank — 
but that's not the same thing. I struck out for another 
of these little islands, and it was from that one that I ' 
first saw your riding-light. Something to swim for. I 
I went on easily, and on the way I came upon a flat j 
rock a foot or two above water. In the daytime, I 
dare say, you might make it out with a glass from your 
poop. I scrambled up on it and rested myself for a 
bit. Then I made another start. That last spell must 
have been over a mile." 

His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all 
the time he stared straight out through the port-hole, 
in which there was not even a star to be seen. I had 
not interrupted him. There was something that made 
comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in 
himself ; a sort of feeling, a quality, which I can't find 
a name for. And when he ceased, all I found was a 
futile whisper : " So you swam for our light ? " 

" Yes — straight for it. It was something to swim 
for. I couldn't see any stars low down because the 
coast was in the way, and I couldn't see the land, either. 
The water was like glass. One might have been swim- 
ming in a confounded thousand-feet deep cistern with 
no place for scrambling out anywhere; but what I 
didn't like was the notion of swimming round and 
round like a crazed bullock before I gave out; and as 
I didn't mean to go back . . . No. Do you see me 



THE SECEET SHAEER 135 

being hauled back, stark naked, off one of these little 
islands by the scruff of the neck and fighting like a 
wild beast ? Somebody would have got killed for cer- 
tain, and I did not want any of that. So I went on. 
Then your ladder ^" 

" Why didn't you hail the ship ? '' I asked, a little 
louder. 

He touched my shoulder lightly. Lazy footsteps 
came right over our heads and stopped. The second 
mate had crossed from the other side of the poop and 
might have been hanging over the rail, for all we 
knew. 

"H!e couldn't hear us talking — could he?" My 
double breathed into my very ear, anxiously. 

His anxiety was an answer, a sufficient answer, to 
the question I had put to him. An answer containing 
all the difficulty of that situation. I closed the port- 
hole quietly, to make sure. A louder word might have 
been overheard. 

" Who's that ? " he whispered then. 

'^ My second mate. But I don't know much more of 
the fellow than you do." 

And I told him a little about myself. I had been 
appointed to take charge while I least expected any- 
thing of the sort, not quite a fortnight ago. I didn't 
know either the ship or the people. Hadn't had the 
time in port to look about me or size anybody up. And 
as to the crew, all they knew was that I was appointed 
to take the ship home. For the rest, I was almost as 
much of a stranger on board as himself, I said. And 



136 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

at the moment I felt it most acutely. I felt that it 
would take very little to make me a suspect person in 
the eyes of the ship's company. 

He had turned about meantime; and we, the two 
strangers in the ship, faced each other in identical at- 
titudes. 

" Your ladder '^ he murmured, after a silence. 

" Who'd have thought of finding a ladder hanging over 
at night in a ship anchored out here I I felt just then 
a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've been 
leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out 
of condition. I wasn't capable of swimming round as 
far as your rudder-chains. And, lo and behold ! "there 
was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it I said 
to myself, ^ What's the good ? ' When I saw a man's 
head looking over I thought I would swim away pres- 
ently and leave him shouting — in whatever language 
it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I — I liked 
it. And then you speaking to me so quietly — as if 
you had expected me — made me hold on a little longer. 
It had been a confounded lonely time — I don't mean 
while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to some- 
body that didn't belong to the Sephora. As to asking 
for the captain, that was a mere impulse. It could 
have been no use, with all the ship knowing about me 
and the other people pretty certain to be round here in 
the morning. I don't know — I wanted to be seen, to 
talk with somebody, before I went on. I don't know 
what I would have said. . . . ^ Fine night, isn't it ? ' 
or something of the sort." 



THE SECKET SHAKEK 137 



iC 



Do you think they will be round here presently ? " 
I asked with some incredulity. 

" Quite likely/' he said^ faintly. 

He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His 
head rolled on his shoulders. 

" H'm. We shall see then. Meantime get into that 
bed/' I whispered. "Want help? There." 

It was a rather high bed-place with a set of drawers 
underneath. This amazing swimmer really needed the 
lift I gave him by seizing his leg. Hie tumbled in, 
rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his 
eyes. And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must 
have looked exactly as I used to look in that bed. I 
gazed upon my other self for a while before drawing 
across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran 
on a brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning 
them together for greater safety, but I sat down on 
the couch, and once there I felt unwilling to rise and 
hunt for a pin. I would do it in a moment. I was 
extremely tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the 
strain of stealthiness, by the effort of whispering and 
the general secrecy of this excitement. It was three 
o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine, 
but I was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep. 
I sat there, fagged out, looking at the curtains, trying 
to clear my mind of the confused sensation of being 
in two places at once, and greatly bothered by an 
exasperating knocking in my head. It was a relief 
to discover suddenly that it was not in my head at all, 
but on the outside of the door. Before I could collect 



138 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

myself the words " Come in " were out of my mouth, 
and the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my 
morning coffee. I had slept, after all, and I was so 
frightened that I shouted, " This way I I am here, 
steward," as though he had been miles away. He put" 
down the tray on the table next the couch and only 
then said, very quietly, " I can see you are here, sir." 
I felt him give me a keen look, but I dared not meet 
his eyes just then. He must have wondered why I 
had drawn the curtains of my bed before going to sleep 
on the couch. He went out, hooking the door open as 
usual. 

I heard the crew washing decks above me. I knew 
I would have been told at once if there had been any 
wind. Calm, I thought, and I was doubly vexed. 
Indeed, I felt dual more than ever. The steward re- 
appeared suddenly in the doorway. I jumped up 
from the couch so quickly that he gave a start. 

" What do you want here ? " 

" Close your port, sir — they are washing decks." 

" It is closed," I said, reddening. 

" Very well, sir." But he did not move from the 
doorway and returned my stare in an extraordinary, 
equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes wavered, 
all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually 
gentle, almost coaxingly: 

" May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir ? " 

" Of course 1 " I turned my back on him while he 
popped in and out. Then I unhooked and closed the 
door and even pushed the bolt. This sort of thing 



THE SECEET SHAEER ISfi 

could not go on very long. The cabin was as hot as an 

^ oven, too. I took a peep at my double, and discovered 

^ that he had not moved, his •arm was still over his eyes; 
but his chest heaved; his hair was wet; his chin 
glistened with perspiration. I reached over him and 
opened the port. 

^ " I must show myself on deck," I reflected. 

Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked, 

t with no one to say nay to me within the whole circle 
of the horizon; but to lock my cabin door and take 
the key away I did not dare. Directly I put my head 
out of the companion I saw the group of my two 
officers, the second mate barefooted, the chief mate in 

^ long india-rubber boots, near the break of the poop, 
and the steward half-way down the poop-ladder talk- 
ing to them eagerly. He happened to catch sight of 
me and dived, the second ran down on the main-deck 
shouting some order or other, and the chief mate came 
to meet me, touching his cap. 

There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did 

. not like. I don't know whether the steward had told 
them that I was " queer " only, or downright drunk, 
but I know the man meant to have a good look at me. 
I watched him coming with a smile which, as he got 
into point-blank range, took effect and froze his very 
whiskers. I did not give him time to open his lips. 
" Square the yards by lifts and braces before the 

; hands go to breakfast.'' 

It was the first particular order I had given on board 
that ship; and I stayed on deck to see it executed, 



440 TWIXT lAKD AND SEA 

too. I had felt the need of asserting myself without 
loss of time. That sneering young cub got taken 
down a peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized 
the opportunity of having a good look at the face of 
every foremast man as they filed past nie to go to the 
after braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, 
I presided with such frigid dignity that the two mates 
were only too glad to escape from the c^bin as soon as 
decency permitted; and all the time the dual working ^ 
of my mind distracted me almost to the point of 
insanity. I was constantly watchiug myself, my secret 
self, as dependent on my actions as my own per- 
sonality, sleeping in that bed, behind that door which 
faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was 
very much like being mad, only it was worse because 
one was aware of it. 

I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at 
last he opened his eyes it was in the full possession of 
his senses, with an inquiring look. 

" All's well so far,'' I whispered. " Now you must 
vanish into the bath-room." 

He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and I then rang 
for the steward, and facing him boldly, directed him 
to tidy up my stateroom while I was having my bath 
— " and be quick about it." As my tone admitted of 
no excuses, he said, " Yes, sir," and ran off to fetch 
his dust-pan and brushes. I took a bath and did most 
of my dressing, splashing, and whistling softly for the 
steward's edification, while the secret sharer of my life 
stood drawn up bolt upright in that little space, his 



THE SECRET SHAEER 141 

face looking very sunken in daylight, his eyelids 
lowered under the stem, dark line of his eyebrows 
drawn together by a slight frown. 

When I left him there to go back to my room the 
steward was finishing dusting. I sent- for the mate 
and engaged him in some insignificant conversation. 
It was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character 
of his whiskers; but my object was to give him an 
opportunity for a good look at my cabin. And then 
I could at last shut, with a clear conscience, the door 
of my stateroom and get my double back into the 
recessed part. There was nothing else for it. He had 
to sit still on a small folding stool, half smothered by 
the heavy coats hanging there. We listened to the 
steward going into the bath-room out of the saloon, 
filling the water-bottles there, scrubbing the bath, 
setting things to rights, whisk, bang, clatter — out 
again into the saloon — turn the key — click. Such 
was my scheme for keeping ipy second self invisible. 
Nothing better could be contrived under the circum- 
stances. And there we sat; I at my writing-desk 
ready to appear busy with some papers, he behind me, 
out of sight of the door. It would not have been 
prudent to talk in daytime; and I could not have stood 
the excitement of that queer sense of whispering to 
myself. Now and then, glancing over my shoulder, I 
saw him far back there, sitting rigidly on the low 
stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded, his 
head hanging on his breast — and perfectly still. 
Anybody would have taken him for me. 



142 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

I was fascinated by it myself. Every moment I had 
to glance over my shoulder. I was looking at him 
when a voice outside the door said: 

" Beg pardon, sir." 

" Well !"...! kept my eyes on him, and so, when 
the voice outside the door announced, " There's a 
ship's boat coming our way, sir," I saw him give* a 
start — the first movement he had made for hours. 
But he did not raise his bowed head. 

" All right. Get the ladder over." 

I hesitated. Should I whisper, something to him? 
But what? His immobility seemed to have been j 
never disturbed. What could I tell him he did not ' 
know already? . . . Finally I went on deck. 



II 

The skipper of the Sephora had a thin red whisker all 
round his face, and the sort of complexion that goes 
with hair of that colour; also the particular, rather • 
smeary shade of blue in the eyes. He was not exactly 
a showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature 
but middling — one leg slightly more bandy than the 
other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around. A 
spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged. 
I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert 
him. Perhaps he was shy. He mumbled to me as if 
he were ashamed of what he was saying ; gave his name 
(it was something like Archbold — but at this distance 
of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name, and a few 



THE SECRET SHAEER 143 

• 

other particulars of that sort, in the manner of a 
criminal making a reluctant and doleful confession. 
He had had terrible weather on the passage out — 
terrible — terrible — wife aboard, too. 

By this time we were seated in the cabin and the 
steward brought in a tray with ia bottle and glasses. 
" Thanks ! No." Never took liquor. Would have 
some water, though. He drank two tumblerfuls. 
Terrible thirsty work. Ever since daylight had been 
exploring the islands round his ship. 

" What was that for — fun ? " I asked, with an ap- 
pearance of polite interest. 

" No ! " He sighed. " Painful duty." 

As he persisted in his mumbling and I wanted my 
double to hear every word, I hit upon the notion of 
informing him that I regretted to say I was hard of 
hearing. 

" Such a young man, too ! " he nodded, keeping his 
smeary blue, unintelligent eyes fastened upon me. 
What was the cause of it — some disease ? he inquired, 
without the least sympathy and as if he thought that, 
if so, I'd got no more than I deserved. 

" Yes ; disease," I admitted in a cheerful tone which 
seemed to shock him. But my point was gained, 
because he had to raise his voice to give me his tale. 
It is not worth while to record that version. It was 
just over two months since all this had happened, and 
he had thought so much about it that he seemed 
completely muddled as to its bearings, but stil 
immensely impressed. 



144 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

f 

" What would you think of such a thing happening ) 
on board your own ship ? I've had the Sephora for j 
these fifteen years. I am a well-known shipmaster." f 

He was densely distressed — and perhaps I should 
have sympathised with him if I had been able to detach 
my mental vision from the unsuspected sharer of my 
cabin as though he were my second self. There he 
was on the other side of the bulkhead, four or five feet [ 
from us, no more, as we sat in the saloon. I looked v 
politely at Captain Archbold (if that was his name), I 
but it was the other I saw, in a grey sleeping-suit, i 



( 



seated on a low stool, his bare feet close together, his 
arms folded, and every word said between us falling 
into the ears of his dark head bowed on his chest. ' 

" I have been at sea now, man and boy, for seven- 
and-thirty years, and I've never heard of such a thing 
happening in an English ship. And that it should be 
my ship. Wife on board, too." [ 

I was hardly listening to him. i 

" Don't you think," I said, " that the heavy sea 
which, you told me, came aboard just then might have 
killed the man ? I have seen the sheer weight of a sea 
kill a man very neatly, by simply breaking his neck." 

" Good God ! " he uttered, impressively, fixing his 
smeary blue eyes on me. " The sea ! No man killed 
by the sea ever looked like that." He seemed posi- 
tively scandalised at my suggestion. And as I gazed 
at him, certainly not prepared for anything original 
on his part, he advanced his head close to mine and 



I 



THE SECRET SHAEER 145 

thrust his tongue out at me so suddenly that I couldn't 
help starting back. 

After scoring over my calmness in this graphic way 
he nodded wisely. If I had seen the sight, he assured 
me, I would never forget it as long as I lived. The 
weather was too bad to give the corpse a proper sea 
buriaL So next day at dawn they took it up on the 
poop, covering its face with a bit of bunting; he read 
a short prayer, and then, just as it was, in its oilskins 
and long boots, they launched it amongst those moun- 
tainous seas that seemed ready every moment to 
swallow up the ship herself and the terrified lives on 
board of her. 

" That reefed foresail saved you," I threw in. 

" Under God — it did," he exclaimed fervently. 
*' It was by a special mercy, I firmly believe, that it 
stood some of those hurricane squalls." 

" It was the setting of that sail which ^" I began. 

" God's own hand in it," he interrupted ma 
** Nothing less could have done it. I don't mind 
telling you that I hardly dared give the order. It 
seemed impossible that we could touch anything with- 
out losing it, and then our last hope would have been 
gone." 

The terror of that gale was on him yet. I let him 
go on for a bit, then said, casually — as if returning to 
a minor subject: 

"You w^ere very anxious to give up your mate to 
the shore people, I believe ? " 



146 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA I 

He was. To the law. His obscure tenacity on J 
that point had in it something incomprehensible and : 
a little awful; something, as it were, mystical, quite ' 
apart from his anxiety that he should not be suspected i 
of "countenancing any doings of that sort." Seven- ' 
and-thirty virtuous years at sea, of which over twenty 
of immaculate command, and the last fifteen in the 
Sephora, seemed to have laid him under some pitiless j 
obligation. 

" And you know," he went on, groping shamefacedly 
amongst his feelings, " I did not engage that young 
fellow. His people had some interest with my owners. 
I was in a way forced to take him on. He looked very 
smart, very gentlemanly, and all that. But do you ' 
know — I never liked him, somehow. I am a plain ( 
man. You see, he wasn't exactly the sort for the chief 
mate of a ship like the Sephora," 

I had become so connected in thoughts and im- 
pressions with the secret sharer of my cabin that I 
felt as if I, personally, were being given to understand j 
that I, too, was not the sort that would have done for ! 
the chief mate of a ship like the Sephora. I had no 
doubt of it in my mind. 

" Not at all the style of man. You understand," he 
insisted, superfluously, looking hard at me. 

I smiled urbanely. He seemed at a loss for a while. 

" I suppose I must report a suicide." 

" Beg pardon ? " 

" Sui-cide ! That's what I'll have to write to my 
owners directly I get in." 



THE SECEET SHARER 141 

'^ Unless you manage to recover him before to- 
morrow," I assented, dispassionately. ..." I mean, 
alive." 

He mumbled something which I really did not catch, 
and I turned my ear to him in a puzzled manner. He 
fairly bawled: 

" The land — I say, the mainland is at least seven 
miles off my anchorage." 

" About that." 

My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of 
any sort of pronounced interest, began to arouse his 
distrust. But except for the felicitous pretence of 
deafness I had not tried to pretend anything. I 
had felt utterly incapable of playing the part of 
ignorance properly, and therefore was afraid to try. 
It is also certain that he had brought some ready- 
made suspicions with him, and that he viewed my 
politeness as a strange and unnatural phenomenon. 
And yet how else could I have received him? Not 
heartily! That was impossible for psychological rea- 
sons, which I need not state here. My only object was 
to keep off his inquiries. Surlily ? Yes, but surliness 
might have provoked a point-blank question. From 
its novelty to him and from its nature, punctilious 
courtesy was the manner best calculated to restrain 
the man. But there was the danger of his breaking 
through my defence bluntly. I could not, I think, 
have met him by a direct lie, also for psychological 
(not moral) reasons. If he had only known how afraid 
I was of his putting my feeling of identity with the 



148 'TWIXT LAND AKD SEA 



/ 



other to the test! But, strangely enough — (I thought 
of it only afterward) — I believe that he was not a i 
little disconcerted by the reverse side of that weird 
situation, by something in me that reminded him I 
of the man he was seeking — suggested a mysterious 
similitude to the young fellow he had distrusted and 
disliked from the first. 

However that might have been, the silence was not | 
very prolonged. He took another oblique step. 

" I reckon I had no more than a two-mile pull to 
your ship. Xot a bit more.'* | 

"And quite enough, too, in this awful heat/' I j 
said. I 

Another pause full of mistrust followed. Necessity, 
they say, is mother of invention, but fear, too, is not 
barren of ingenious suggestions. And I was afraid he | 
would ask me point-blank for news of my other self. 

" Xice little saloon, isn't it ? " I remarked, as if 
noticing for the first time the way his eyes roamed 
from one closed door to the other. " And very well 
fitted out, too. Here, for instance," I continued, 
reaching over the back of my seat negligently and 
flinging the door open, " is my bath-room.'' 

He made an eager movement, but hardly gave it a 
glance. I got up, shut the door of the bath-room, and 
invited him to have a look round, as if I were very 
proud of my accommodation. He had to rise and be 
shown round, but he went through the business without 
any raptures whatever. 

"And now we'll have a look at my stateroom," I 



THE SECKET SHAKER 149' 

declared, in a voice as loud as I dared to make it, 
crossing the cabin to the starboard side with purposely 
heavy steps. 

He followed me in and gazed around. My intelli- 
gent double had vanished. I played my part. 

*^ Very convenient — isn't it ? " 

" Very nice. Very comf . . ." He didn't finish, 
and went out brusquely as if to escape from some un- 
righteous wiles of mine. But it was not to be. I had 
been too frightened not to feel vengeful; I felt I had 
him on the run, and I meant to keep him on the run. 
My polite insistence must have had something menac- 
ing in it, because he gave in suddenly. And I did not 
let him off a single item; mate's room, pantry, store- 
rooms, the very sail-locker which was also under the 
poop — he had to look into them alL When at last I 
showed him out on the quarter-deck he drew a long, 
spiritless sigh, and mumbled dismally that he must 
really be going back to his ship now. I desired my 
mate, who had joined us, to see to the captain's boat. 

The man of whiskers gave a blast on the whistle 
which he used to wear hanging round his neck, and 
yelled, '' Sephoras slwslj I " My double down there in 
my cabin must have heard, and certainly could not 
feel more relieved than I. Eour fellows came running 
out from somewhere forward and went over the side, 
while my own men, appearing on deck too, lined the 
raiL I escorted my visitor to the gangway ceremoni- 
ously, and nearly overdid it. He was a tenacious 
beast. On the very ladder he lingered, and in that 



>J 



150 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

unique, guiltily conscientious manner of sticking to the / 
point : 

" I say . . . you . . . you don't think that — 

I covered his voice loudly: 

" Certainly not. ... I am delighted. Good-bye." 

I had an idea of what he meant to say, and just 
saved myself by the privilege of defective hearing. He 
was too shaken generally to insist, but my mate, close 
witness of that parting, looked mystified and his face 
took on a thoughtful cast. As I did not want to appear 
as if I wished to avoid all communication with my 
officers, he had the opportunity to address me. 

" Seems a very nice man. His boat's crew told oiur 
chaps a very extraordinary story, if what I am told by 
the steward is true. I suppose you had it from the 
captain, sir ? " 

" Yes. I had a story from the captain." 

" A very horrible affair — isn't it, sir ? " 

« It is." 

" Beats all these tales we hear about murders in 
Yankee ships." 

" I don't think it beats them. I don't think it re- 
sembles them in the least." 

" Bless my soul — you don't say so ! But of course 
I've no acquaintance whatever with American ships, 
not I, so I couldn't go against your knowledge. It's 
horrible enough for me. . . . But the queerest part is 
that those fellows seemed to have some idea the man 
was hidden aboard here. They had really. Did you 
ever hear of such a thing ? " 



THE SECEET SHAEEB 151 

" Preposterous — isn't it ? " 

We were walking to and fro athwart the quarter- 
deck. No one of the crew forward could be seen (the 
day was Sunday), and the mate pursued: 

" There was some little dispute about it. Our chaps 
took offence. ^As if we would harbour a thing like 
that/ they said. ^Wouldn't you like to look for him 
in our coal-hole ? ' Quite a tiff. But they made it up 
in the end. I suppose he did drown himself. Don't 
you, sir ? " 

" I don't suppose anything." 

*' You have no doubt in the matter, sir ? " 

*' None whatever." 

I left him suddenly. I felt I was producing a bad 
impression, but with my double down there it was most 
trying to be on deck. And it was almost as trying to 
be below. Altogether a nerve-trying situation. But 
on the whole I felt less torn in two when I was with 
him. There was no one in the whole ship whom I 
dared take into my confidence. Since the hands had 
got to know his story, it would have been impossible 
to pass him off for any one else, and an accidental dis- 
covery was to be dreaded now more than ever. . . . 

The steward being engaged in laying the table for 
dinner, we could talk only with our eyes when I first 
went down. Later in the afternoon werhad a cautious 
try at whispering. The Sunday quietness of the ship 
was against us; the stillness of air and water around 
hep was against us ; the elements, the men were against 
us — everything was against us in our secret partner- 



152 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

ship; time itself — for this could not go on forever. 
The very trust in Providence was, I suppose, denied to 
his guilt. Shall I confess that this thought cast me 
down very much? And as to the chapter of accidents 
which counts for so much in the book of success, I could 
only hope that it was closed. For what favourable ac- 
cident could be expected? 

" Did you hear everything ? " were my first words as 
soon as we took up our position side by side, leaning 
over my bed-place. 

He had. And the proof of it was his earnest whis- 
per, " The man told you he hardly dared to give the 
order." 

I understood the reference to be to that saving fore- 
sail. 

" Yes. He was afraid of it being lost in the set- 
ting." 

" I assure you he never gave the order. He may 
think he did, but he never gave it. He stood there 
with me on the break of the poop after the maintopsail 
blew away, and whimpered about our last hope — 
positively whimpered about it and nothing else — and 
the night coming on ! To hear one's skipper go on like 
that in such weather was enough to drive any fellow 
out of his mind. It worked me up into a sort of 
desperation. I just took it into my own hands and 

went away from him, boiling, and But what's 

the use telling you? You know! . . . Do you think 
that if I had not been pretty fierce with them I should 
have got the men to do anything ? Not it ! The bo'fl'n 



THE SECEET SHAKEE 153 

perhaps ? Perhaps ! It wasn't a heavy sea — it was a 
sea gone mad ! I suppose the end of the world will be 
something like that; and a man may have the heart 
to see it coming once and be done with it — but to have 

to face it day after day I don't blame anybody. 

I was precious little better than the rest. Only — I 
was an officer of that old coal-waggon, anyhow " 

" I quite understand," I conveyed that sincere 
assurance into his ear. He was out of breath with 
whispering ; I could hear him pant slightly. It was all 
very simple. The same strung-up force which had 
given twenty-four men a chance, at least, for their lives, 
had, in ^ sort of recoil, crushed an unworthy mutinous 
existence. 

But I had no leisure to weigh the merits of the 
matter — footsteps in the saloon, a heavy knock. 
" There's enough wind to get under way with, sir." 
Here was the call of a new claim upon my thoughts and 
even upon my feelings. 

" Turn the hands up," I cried through the door. 
" I'll be on deck directly." 

I was going out to make the acquaintance of my 
ship. Before I left the cabin our eyes met — the eyes 
of the only two strangers on board. I pointed to the 
recessed part where the little camp-stool awaited him 
and laid my finger on my lips. He made a gesture — 
somewhat vague — a little mysterious, accompanied by 
a faint smile, as if of regret. 

This is not the place to enlarge upon the sensations 
of a man who feels for the first time a ship move under 



154 'TWIXT LAND AXD SEA 

hia feet to bis own independent word. In my ease they 
were not unalloyed, I was not wholly alone with my 
command; for there was that stranger in my cabin. 
Or rather, I was not completely and wholly with her. 
Part of me waa absent. That mental feeling of being 
in two places at once affected me physically as if the 
mood of secrecy had penetrated my very aoul. Before 
an honr had elapsed sinee the ship had begiin to move, 
having occasion to ask the mate (he stood by my aide) 
to take a compass bearing of the Pagoda, I caught my- 
self reaching up to hia ear in whispers. I say I caught 
myself, but enough had escaped to startle the man. I 
can't describe it otherwise than by saying that be shied. 1 
A grave, preoccupied manner, as though he were in ' 
possession of some perplexing intelligence, did not leave | 
him henceforth. A little later I moved away from the 
rail to look at the compasa with such a stealthy gait 
that the helmsman noticed it — and I could not help ' 
noticing the unusual roundness of his eyes. Theae are 
trifling instancea, though it's to no commander's ad- , 
vantage to be suspected of ludicrous eccentricities. 
But I was also more serioTisly affected. There are to | 
a seaman certain words, gestures, that should in given 
conditions come aa naturally, aa instinctively as the ' 
winking of a menaced eye. A certain order should 
spring on to hia lips without thinking; a certain sign 
should get itself made, so to speak, without reflection. 
But all unconscious alertness had abandoned me. I 
had to make an effort of will to recall myself back 
(from the cabin) to the conditions of the moment. I 



THE SECEET SHAEEE 155 

felt that I was appearing an irresolute commander to 
those people who were watching me more or less critic- 
aUy. 

And, besides, there were the scares. On the second 
day out, for instance, coming off the deck in the after- 
noon (I had straw slippers on my bare feet) I stopped 
at the open pantry door and spoke to the steward. He 
was doing something there with his back to me. At 
the sound of my voice he nearly jumped out of his skin, 
as the saying is, and incidentally broke a cup. 

"What on earth's the matter with you?" I asked, 
astonished. 

He was extremely confused. "Beg your pardon, 
sir. I made sure you were in your cabin." 

" You see I wasn't." 

" No, sir. I could have sworn I had heard you mov- 
ing in there not a moment ago. It's most extraor- 
dinary . . . very sorry, sir." 

I passed on with an inward shudder. I was so 
identified with my secret double that I did not even 
mention the fact in those scanty, fearful whispers we 
exchanged. I suppose he had made some slight noise 
of some kind or other. It would have been miraculous 
if he hadn't at one time or another. And yet, hag- 
gard as he appeared, he looked always perfectly self- 
controlled, more than calm — almost invulnerable. 
On my suggestion he remained almost entirely in the 
bath-room, which, upon the whole, was the safest place. 
There could be really no shadow of an excuse for any 
one ever wanting to go in there, once the steward had 



156 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

done with it. It was a very tiny place. Sometimes 
he reclined on the floor, his legs bent, his head sustained 
on one elbow. At others I would find him on the camp- 
stool, sitting in his grey sleeping-suit and with his 
cropped dark hair like a patient, unmoved convict. At 
night I would smuggle him into my bed-place, and we 
would whisper together, with the regular footfalls of 
the officer of the watch passing and repassing over our 
heads. It was an infinitely miserable time. It was 
lucky that some tins of fine preserves were stowed in 
a locker in my stateroom; hard bread I could always 
get hold of; and so he lived on stewed chicken, pate 
de foie gras, asparagus, cooked oysters, sardines — on 
all sorts of abominable sham delicacies out of tins. 
My early morning coffee he always drank; and it was 
all I dared do for him in that respect. 

Every day there was the horrible manoeuvring to go 
through so that my room and then the bath-room should 
be done in the usual way. I came to hate the sight of 
the steward, to abhor the voice of that harmless man. 
I felt that it was he who would bring on the disaster of 
discovery. It hung like a sword over our heads. 

The fourth day out, I think (we were th«i working 
down the east side of the Gulf of Siam, tack for tack, 
in light winds and smooth water) — the fourth day, I 
say, of this miserable juggling with the unavoidable, 
as we sat at our evening meal, that man, whose slight- 
est movement I dreaded, after putting down the dishes 
ran up on deck busily. This could not be dangerous. 
Presently he came down again; and then it appeared 



THE SECEET SHAEER 157 

that he had remembered a coat of mine which I had 
thrown over a rail to dry after having been wetted in 
a shower which had passed over the ship in the after- 
noon. Sitting stolidly at the head of the table I be- 
came terrified at the sight of the garment on his arm. 
Of course he made for my door. There was no time to 
lose. 

" Steward," I thundered. My nerves were so 
shaken that I could not govern my voice and conceal my 
agitation. This was the sort of thing that made my 
terrificaUy whiskered mate tap his forehead with his 
forefinger. I had detected him using that gesture 
while talking on deck with a confidential air to the car- 
penter. It was too far to hear a word, but I had no 
doubt that this pantomime could only refer to the 
strange new captain. 

" Yes, sir," the pale-faced steward turned resignedly 
to me. It was this maddening course of being shouted 
at, checked without rhyme or reason, arbitrarily chased 
out of my cabin, suddenly called into it, sent flying 
out of his pantry on incomprehensible errands, that 
accounted for the growing wretchedness of his expres- 
sion. 

" Where are you going with that coat ? " 

" To your room, sir." 

" Is there another shower coming? " 

" Fm sure I don't know, sir. Shall I go up again 
and see, sir ? " 

" No ! never mind." 

My object was attained, as of course my other self 



158 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

in there would have heard everything that passed. 
During this interlude my two officers never raised their 
eyes off their respective plates ; but the lip of that con- 
founded cub, the second mate, quivered visibly. 

I expected the steward to hook my coat on and come 
out at once. He was very slow about it; but I domi- 
nated my nervousness sufBciently not to shout after 
him. Suddenly I became aware (it could be heard 
plainly enough) that the fellow for some reason or 
other was opening the door of the bath-room. It waa 
the end. The place was literally not big enough to 
swing a cat in. My voice died in my throat and I went 
stony all over. I expected to hear a yell of surprise 
and terror, and made a movement, hut had not the 
strength to get on my legs. Everything remained stilL 
Had my second self taken the poor wretch by the 
throat? I don't know what I would have done next 
moment if I had not seen the steward come out of my 
room, close the door, and then stand quietly by the 
sideboard. 

" Saved," I thought, " But, no 1 Lost I Gone I 
He waa gone ! " 

I laid my knife and fork down and leaned back in 
my chair, My head swam. After a while, when 
sufficiently recovered to speak in a steady voice, I in- 
structed my mate to put the sliip round at eight o'clock 
himself. 

" I won't come on deck," I went on. " I think I'll 
turn in, and unless the wind shifts I don't want to be 
disturbed before midnight. I feel a bit seedy." 



THE SECEET SHAEER 159 

" You did look middling bad a little while ago/' the 
chief mate remarked without showing any great con- 
cern. 

They both went out, and I stared at the steward 
clearing the table. There was nothing to be read on 
that wretched man's face. But why did he avoid my 
eyes I asked myself. Then I thought I should like to 
hear the sound of his voice. 

" Steward ! '' 

" Sir ! " Startled as usual. 

" Where did you hang up that coat ? '' 

'^ In the bath-room, sir." The usual anxious tone. 
" It's not quite dry yet, sir." 

For some time longer I sat in the cuddy. Had my 
double vanished as he had come? But of his coming 
there was an explanation, whereas his disappearance 
would be inexplicable. ... I went slowly into my 
dark room, shut the door, lighted the lamp, and for a 
time dared not turn round. When at last I did I saw 
him standing bolt-upright in the narrow recessed part. 
It would not be true to say I had a shock, but an 
irresistible doubt of his bodily existence flitted through 
my mind. Can it be, I asked myself, that he is not 
visible to other eyes than mine? It was like being 
haunted. Motionless, with a grave face, he raised his 
hands slightly at me in a gesture which meant clearly, 
" Heavens ! what a narrow escape I " Narrow indeed. 
I think I had come creeping quietly as near insanity 
as any man who has not actually gone over the border. 
That gesture restrained me, so to speak. 



160 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

The mate with the terriiac whiskers was now putting 
the ship on the other tack. In the moment of pro- 
found silence which follows upon the hands going to 
their stations I heard on the poop his raised voice: 
" Hard alee ! '^ and the distant shout of the order re- 
peated on the maindeck. The sails, in that light 
breeze, made but a faint fluttering noise. It ceased. 
The ship was coming round slowly; I held my breath 
in the renewed stilhiess of expectation; one wouldn't 
have thought that there was a single living soul on her 
decks. A sudden brisk shout, " Mainsail haul ! " 
broke the spell, and in the noisy cries and rush over- 
head of the men running away with the main-brace 
we two, down in my cabin, came together in our usual 
position by the bed-place. 

He did not wait for my question. " I heard him 
fumbling here and just managed to squat myself down 
in the bath," he whispered to me. " The fellow only 
opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat 
up. All the same ^^ 

" I never thought of that," I whispered back, even 
more appalled than before at the closeness of the shave, 
and marvelling at that something unyielding in his 
character which was carrying him through so finely, i 
There was no agitation in his whisper. Whoever was I 
being driven distracted, it was not he. He was sane. I 
And the proof of his sanity was continued when he 
took up the whispering again. 

" It would never do for me to come to life again." 

It was something that a ghost might have said. But 



THE SECRET SHAKER 161 

what lie was alluding to was his old captain's reluctant 
admission of the theory of suicide. It would obviously 
serve his turn — if I had understood at all the view 
which seemed to govern the unalterable purpose of his 
action. 

" You must maroon me as soon as ever you can get 
amongst these islands off the Cambodje shore," he 
went on. 

" Maroon you I We are not living in a boy's ad- 
venture tale," I protested. His scornful whispering 
took me up. 

" We aren't indeed ! There's nothing of a boy's tale 
in this. But there's nothing else for it. I want no 
more. You don't suppose I am afraid of what can be 
done to me ? Prison or gallows or whatever they may 
pleasa But you don't see me coming back to explain 
such things to an old fellow in a wig and twelve re- 
spectable tradesmen, do you? What can they know 
whether I am guilty or not — or of what I am guilty, 
either? That's my affair. What does the Bible say? 
^ Driven off the face of the earth.' Very well. I am 
off the face of the earth now. As I came at night so 
I shall go." 

" Impossible ! " I murmured. " You can't." 

" Can't ? . . . Not naked like a soul on the Day of 
Judgment. I shall freeze on to this sleeping-suit. 
The Last Day is not yet — and . . . you have under- 
stood thoroughly. Didn't you ? " 

I felt suddenly ashamed of myself. I may say truly 
that I understood — and my hesitation in letting that 



162 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

man swim away from my ship's side had been a mere i 
sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice. 

" It can't be done now till next night," I breathed 
out. '^ The ship is on the off-shore tack and the wind 
may fail ns." 

" As long as I know that yon understand,'' he 
whispered. " But of course you do. It's a great sat- 
isfaction to have got somebody to understand. You 
seem to have been there on purpose." And in the 
same whisper, as if we two whenever we talked had to 
say things to each other which were not fit for the 
world to hear, he added, " It's very wonderfuL" 

We remained side by side talking in our secret way 
— but sometimes silent or just exchanging a whispered 
word or two at long intervals. And as usual he stared 
through the port. A breath of wind came now and 
again into our faces. The ship might have been 
moored in dock, so gently and on an even keel she 
slipped through the water, that did not murmur even 
at our passage, shadowy and silent like a phantom sea. 

At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's great 
surprise put the ship round on the other tack. His 
terrible whiskers flitted round me in silent criticism. 
I certainly should not have done it if it had been only 
a question of getting out of that sleepy gulf as quickly 
as possible. I believe he told the second mate, who 
relieved him, that it was a great want of judgment. 
The other only yawned. That intolerable cub shuffled 
about so sleepily and lolled against the rails in such a 



THE SECEET SHAEEE 163 

slack, improper fashion that I came down on him 
sharply. 

" ArenH you properly awake yet ? '^ 

" Yes, sir ! I am awake." 

*^ Well, then, be good enough to hold yourself as if 
you were. And keep a look-out. If there's any cur- 
rent we'll be closing with some islands before day- 
light.'' 

The east side of the gulf is fringed with islands, 
some solitary, others in groups. On the blue back- 
ground of the high coast they ^ seem to float on silvery 
patches of calm water, arid and grey, or dark green 
and rounded like clumps of evergreen bushes, with the 
larger ones, a mile or two long, showing the outlines 
of ridges, ribs of grey rock under the dark mantle of 
matted leafage. Unknown to trade, to travel, almost 
to geography, the manner of life they harbour is an 
.unsolved secret. There must be villages — settlements 
of fishermen at least — on the largest of them, and 
some communication with the world is probably kept 
up by native craft. But all that forenoon, as we 
headed for them, fanned along by the faintest of 
breezes, I saw no sign of man or canoe in the field of 
the telescope I kept on pointing at the scattered group. 

At noon I gave no orders for a change of course, 
and the mate's whiskers became much concerned and 
seemed to be offering themselves unduly to my notice. 
At last I said: 

" I am going to stand right in. Quite in — as far 
as I can take her." 



164 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

The stare of extreme surprise imparted an air of 
ferocity also to his eyes, and he looked truly terrific 
for a moment. 

" We're not doing well in the middle of the gulf," 
I continued, casually. " I am going to look for the 
land breezes to-night." 

" Bless my soul ! Do you mean, sir, in the dark 
amongst the lot of all them islands and reefs and 
shoals ? " 

" Well — if there are any regular land breezes at all 
on this coast one must get close inshore to find them, 
mustn't one ? " 

" Bless my soul ! " he exclaimed again under his 
breath. All that afternoon he wore a dreamy, con- 
templative appearance which in him was a mark of 
perplexity. After dinner I went into my stateroom 
as if I meant to take some rest. There we two bent 
our dark heads over a half-unrolled chart lying on my 
bed. 

" There," I said. " It's got to be Koh-ring. I've 
been looking at it ever since sunrise. It has got two 
hills and a low point. It must be inhabited. And 
on the coast opposite there is what looks like the mouth 
of a biggish river — with some town, no doubt, not 
far up. It's the best chance for you that I can see." 

^^ Anything. Koh-ring let it be." 

He looked thoughtfully at the chart as if surveying 
chances and distances from a lofty height — and fol- 
lowing with his eyes his own figure wandering on the 
blank land of Cochin-China, and then passing off that 



THE SECEET SHAEEE 165 

piece of paper clean out of sight into uncharted re- 
gions. And it was as if the ship had two captains to 
plan her course for her. I had been so worried and 
restless running up and down that I had not had the 
patience to dress that day. I had remained in my 
sleeping-suit, with straw slippers and a soft floppy hat. 
The closeness of the heat in the gulf had been most 
oppressive, and the crew were used to see me wander- 
ing in that airy attire. 

" She will clear the south point as she heads now," 
I whispered into his ear. " Goodness only knows 
when, though, but certainly aftfer dark. I'll edge her 
in to half a mile, as far as I may be able to judge in 
the dark '' 

" Be caref ul,'' he murmured, wamingly — and I 
realised suddenly that all my future, the only future 
for which I was fit, would perhaps go irretrievably to 
pieces in any mishap to my first command. 

I could not stop a moment longer in the room. I 
motioned him to get out of sight and made my way 
on the poop. That unplayful cub had the watch. I 
walked up and down for a while thinking things out, 
then beckoned him over. 

" Send a couple of hands to open the two quarter- 
deck ports," I said, mildly. 

He actually had the impudence, or else so forgot 
himself in his wonder at such an incomprehensible 
order, as to repeat: 

" Open the quarter-deck ports I What for, sir ? " 

" The only reason you need concern yourself about 



166 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

is because I tell you to do so. Have them open wide 
and fastened properly/' 

He reddened and went off, but I believe made some 
jeering remark to the carpenter as to the sensible prac- 
tice of ventilating a ship's quarter-deck. I know he 
popped into the mate's cabin to impart the fact to him 
because the whiskers came on deck, as it were by 
chance, and stole glances at me from below — for 
signs of lunacy or drunkenness, I suppose. 

A little before supper, feeling more restless than 
ever, I rejoined, for a moment, my second self. And 
to find him sitting so quietly was surprising, like some- 
thing against nature, inhuman. 

I developed my plan in a hurried whisper. 

" I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her 
round. I shall presently find means to smuggle you 
out of here into the sail-locker, which communicates 
with the lobby. But there is an opening, a sort of 
square for hauling the sails out, which gives straight 
on the quarter-deck and which is never closed in fine 
weather, so as to give air to the sails. When the ship's 
way is deadened in stays and all the hands are aft at 
the main-braces you shall have a clear road to slip out 
and get overboard through the open quarter-deck port 
I've had them both fastened up. Use a rope's end to 
lower yourself into the water so as to avoid a splash — 
you know. It could be heard and cause some beastly 
complication." 

He kept silent for a while, then whispered, " I un- 
derstand." 



THE SECEET SHAEEE 167 

" I won't be there to see you go," I began with an 
effort " The rest ... I only hope I have under- 
stood, too." 

" You have. Erom first to last " — and for the first 
time there seemed to be a faltering, something strained 
in his whisper. He caught hold of my arm, but the 
ringing of the supper bell made me start. He didn't, 
though ; he only released his grip. 

After supper I didn't come below again till well past 
eight o'clock. The faint, steady breeze was loaded 
with dew; and the wet, darkened sails held all there 
was of propelling power in it. The night, clear and 
starry, sparkled darkly, and the opaque, lightless 
patches shifting slowly against the low stars were the 
drifting islets. On the port bow there was a big one 
more distant and shadowily imposing by the great 
space of sky it eclipsed. 

On opening the door I had a back view of my very 
own self looking at a chart. He had come out of the 
recess and was standing near the table. 

" Quite dark enough," I whispered. 

He stepped back and leaned against my bed with a 
level, quiet glance. I sat on the couch. We had 
nothing to -say to each other. Over our heads the of- 
ficer of the watch moved here and there. Then I heard 
him move quickly. I knew what that meant. He was 
making for the companion; and presentlv his voice 
was outside my door. 

" We are drawing in pretty fast, sir. Land looks 
rather close." 



168 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" Very well," I answered. " I am coming on deck 
directly." 

I waited till lie was gone out of the cuddy, then rose. 
My double moved too. The time had come to ex- 
change our last whispers, for neither of us was ever to 
hear each other's natural voice. 

" Look here ! " I opened a drawer and took out 
three sovereigns. " Take this, anyhow. I've got six 
and I'd give you the lot, only I must keep a little money 
to buy some fruit and vegetables for the crew from na- 
tive boats as we go through Sunda Straits." 

He shook his head. 

" Take it," I urged him, whispering desperately. 
" No one can tell what " 

He smiled and slapped meaningly the only pocket of 
the sleeping-] acket. It was not safe, certainly. But 
I produced a large old silk handkerchief of mine, and 
tying the three pieces of gold in a comer, pressed it on 
him. He was touched, I suppose, because he took it 
at last and tied it quickly round his waist under the 
jacket, on his bare skin. 

Our eyes met; several seconds elapsed, till, our 
glances still mingled, I extended my hand and turned 
the lamp out. Then I passed through the cuddy, leav- 
ing the door of my room wide open. ..." Steward ! " 

He was still lingering in the pantry in the greatness 
of his zeal, giving a rub-up to a plated cruet stand the 
last thing before going to bed. Being careful not to 
wake up the mate, whose room was opposite, I spoke in 
an undertone. 



THE SECEET SHAEEE 169 

He looked round anxiously. " Sir ! " 

*' Can you get me a little hot water from the galley ? " 

'* I am afraid, sir, the galley fire's been out for some 
time now/' 

'^ Go and see/' 

He fled up the stairs. 

" Now," I whispered, loudly, into the saloon — too 
loudly, perhaps, but I was afraid I couldn't make a 
sound. He was by my side in an instant — the double 
captain slipped past the stairs — through the tiny dark 
passage ... a sliding door. We were in the sail- 
locker, scrambling on our knees over the sails. A sud- 
den thought struck me. I saw myself wandering 
barefooted, bareheaded, the sun beating on my dark 
poll. I snatched off my floppy hat and tried hurriedly 
in the dark to ram it on my other self. He dodged 
and fended off silently. I wonder what he thought 
had come to me before he understood and suddenly 
desisted. Our hands met gropingly, lingered united 
in a steady, motionless clasp for a second. . . . No 
word was breathed by either of us when they separated. 

I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the 
steward returned. 

" Sorry, sir. Kettle barely warm. Shall I light 
the spirit-lamp ? " 

'* Never mind." 

I came out on deck slowly. It was now a matter of 
conscience to shave the land as close as possible — for 
now he must go overboard whenever the ship was put 
in stays. Mustl There could be no going back for 



ITO 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

him. After a moment I walked over to leeward and 
my heart flew into my mouth at the nearness of the 
land on the bow. Under any other circumstances I 
would not have held on a minute longer, The second 
mate had followed me anxiously. 

I looked on till I felt I could command my voice. 

" She will weather," I said then in a quiet tone. 

" Are you going to try that, sir ? " he stammered out 
incredulously. 

I took no notice of him and raised my tone just 
enough to be heard by the helmsman. 

" Keep her good full." 

" Good full, sir." 

The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world 
■was silent. The strain of watching the dark loom of 
the land grow bigger and denser was too much for me. 
I had shut my eyes — because the ship must go closer. 
She must ! The stillness was intolerable. Were we 
standing still? 

When I opened my eyes the second view started my 
heart with a thump. The black southern bill of Koh- 
ring seemed to hang right over the ship like a towering 
fragment of the everlasting night. On that enormous 
mass of blackness there was not a gleam to be seen, not i 
a sound to be heard. It was gliding irresistibly to- 
ward us and yet seemed already within reach of the 
hand. I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped 
in the waist, gazing in awed silence, | 

" Are you going on, air," inquired an unsteady voice 
at my elbow. 



THE SECEET SHAEER lYl 

I ignored it. I had to go on. 

" Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't 
do now," I said wamingly. 

" I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman an- 
swered me, in strange, quavering tones. 

Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't 
say in the shadow of the land, hut in the very hlackness 
of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone too close 
to be recalled, gone from me altogether. 

" Give the mate a call," I said to the young man 
who stood at my elbow as still as death. "And turn 
all hands up." 

My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from 
the height of the land. Several voices cried out to- 
gether : " We are all on deck, sir." 

Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding 
closer, towering higher, without a light, without a 
sound. Such a hush had fallen on the ship that she 
might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly 
under the very gate of Erebus, 

" My God ! Where are we ? " 

It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was 
thunderstruck, and as it were deprived of the moral 
support of his whiskers. He clapped his hands and 
absolutely cried out, " Lost ! " 

" Be quiet," I said sternly. 

He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture 
of his despair. "What are we doing here?" 
Looking for the land wind." 



u 



172 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

He made as if to tear his hair^ and addressed me 
recklessly. 

" She will never get out. You have done it, sir. 
I knew it'd end in something like this. She will never 
weather, and you are too close now to stay. She'll 
drift ashore before she's round. O my God 1 " 

I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his 
poor devoted head, and shook it violently. 

" She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear 
himself away. 

" Is she ? . . . Keep good full there 1 " 

" Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a fright- 
ened, thin, child-like voice. 

I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking 
it. " Eeady about, do you hear ? You go forward " 
— shake — " and stop there " — shake — " and hold 
your noise " — shake — " and see these head-sheets 
properly overhauled " — shake, shake — shake. 

And all the time I dared not look toward the land 
lest my heart should fail me. I released my grip at 
last and he ran forward as if fleeing for dear life. 

I wondered what my double there in the sail-locker 
thought of this commotion. He was able to hear * 
everything — and perhaps he was able to understand 
why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close — no 
less. My first order " Hard alee ! " re-echoed omi- 
nously under the towering shadow of Koh-ring as if I 
had shouted in a mountain gorge. And then I watched ^ 
the land intently. In that smooth water and light ! 
wind it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to. No 1 I 



THE SECEET SHAEEE 1Y3 

I could not feel her. And my second self was making 
now ready to slip out and lower himself overboard. 
Perhaps he was gone already . . . ? 

The great black mass brooding over our very mast- 
heads began to pivot away from the ship's side silently. 
And now I forgot the secret stranger ready to depart, 
and remembered only that I was a total stranger to 
the ship. I did not know her. Would she do it? 
How was she to be handled ? 

I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly. She 
was perhaps stopped, and her very fate hung in the 
balance, with the black mass of Eoh-ring like the gate 
of the everlasting night towering over her taffrail. 
What would she do now ? Had she way on her yet ? I 
stepped to the side swiftly, and on the shadowy water 
I could see nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash 
revealing the glassy smoothness of the sleeping surface. 
It was impossible to tell — and I had not learned yet 
the feel of my ship. Was she moving? What I 
needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper, 
which I could throw overboard and watch. I had 
nothing on me. To run down for it I didn't dare. 
There was no time. All at once my strained, yearning 
stare distinguished a white object floating within a 
yard of the ship's side. White on the black water. A 
phosphorescent flash passed under it. What was that 
thing ? • . . I recognised my own floppy hat. It must 
have fallen off his head . . . and he didn't bother. 
Now I had what I wanted — the saving mark for my 
eyes. But I hardly thought of my other self, now gone 



174 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

from the ship, to be hidden forever from all friendly 
faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, 
with no brand of the curse on his sane forehead to stay 
a slaying hand . . . too proud to explain. 

And I watched the hat — the expression of my sud- 
den pity for his mere flesh. It had been meant to sava 
his homeless head from the dangers of the sun. And 
now — behold — it was saving the ship, by serving me 
for a mark to help out the ignorance of my strangeness. 
Ha 1 It was drifting forward, warning me just in time 
that the ship had gathered sternway. 

" Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the sea- 
man standing still like a statue. 

The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light" 
as he jumped round to the other side and spun round 
the wbeeL 

I walked to the break of the poop. On the over- 
shadowed deck all hands etood by the forebraces wait- 
ing for my order. The stars ahead seemed to be glid- 
ing from right to left. And al! was so still in the 
world that I heard the quiet remark " She's round," 
passed in a tone of intense relief between two seamen. 

" Let go and haul." j 

The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst 1 
cheery cries. And now the frightful whiskers made ] 
themselves heard giving various orders. Already the \ 
ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her. 
Nothing I no one in the world should stand now between j 
UB, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge J 



THE SECRET SHAEEE 175 

and mute affection, the perfect communion of a seaman 
with his first command. 

Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, 
on the very edge of a darkness thrown hy a towering 
black mass like the very gateway of Erebus — yes, I 
was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white 
hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer 
of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he were my 
second self, had lowered himself into the water to take 
his punishment : a free man, a proud swimmer striking 
out for a new destiny. 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 

A STOEY OF SHALLOW WATEES 



177 



< 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 



ONE day — and that day was many years ago now 
— I received a long, chatty letter from one of 
my old chums and fellow-wanderers in Eastern waters. 
He was still out there, but settled down, and middle- 
aged; I imagined him grown portly in figure and do- 
mestic in his habits; in short, overtaken by the fate 
common to all except to those who, being specially be- 
loved by the gods, get knocked on the head early. The 
letter was of the reminiscent " do you remember " 
kind — a wistful letter of backward glances. And, 
amongst other things, " surely you remember old Nel- 
son," he wrote. 

Remember old Nelson! Certainly. And to begin 
with, his name was not Nelson. The Englishmen in 
the Archipelago called him Nelson because it was more 
convenient, I suppose, and he never protested. It 
would have been mere pedantry. The true form of 
his name was Nielsen, He had come out East long 
before the advent of telegraph cables, had served Eng- 
lish firms, had married an English girl, had been one 
of us for years, trading and sailing in all directions 

through the Eastern Archipelago, across and around, 

179 



180 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

transversely, diagonally, perpendicularly, in semi- 
circles, and zigzags, and figures of eights, for years and 
years. 

There was no nook or cranny of these tropical waters 
that the enterprise of old Nelson (or Nielsen) had not 
penetrated in an eminently pacific way. His tracks, 
if plotted out, would have covered the map of the 
Archipelago like a cobweb — all of it, with the sole 
exception of the Philippines. He would never ap- 
proach that part, from a strange dread of Spaniards, 
or, to be exact, of the Spanish authorities. What he 
imagined they could do to him it is impossible- to say. 
Perhaps at some time in his life he had read some 
stories of the Inquisition. 

But he was in general afraid of what he called " au- 
thorities^^; not the English authorities, which he 
trusted and respected, but the other two of that part 
of the world. He was not so horrified at the Dutch 
as he was at the Spaniards, but he was even more mis- 
trustful of them. Very mistrustful indeed. The 
Dutch, in his view, were capable of " playing any ugly 
trick on a man" who had the misfortune to displease 
them. There were their laws and regulations, but 
they had no notion of fair play in applying them. It 
was really pitiable to see the anxious circumspection 
of his dealings with some official or other, and remem- 
ber that this man had been known to stroll up to a vil- 
lage of cannibals in New Guinea in a quiet, fearless 
manner (and note that he was always fleshy all his life, 
and, if I may say so, an appetising morsel) on soma 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 181 

matter of barter that did not amount perhaps to fifty 
pounds in the end, 

Eemember old Nelson! Rather! Truly, none of 
us in my generation had known him in his active days. 
He was "retired" in our time. He had bought, or 
else leased, part of a small island from the Sultan of 
a little group called the Seven Isles, not far north from 
Banka. It was, I suppose, a legitimate transaction, 
but I have no doubt that had he been an Englishman 
the Dutch would have discovered a reason to fire hina 
out without ceremony. In this connection the real 
form of his name stood him in good stead. In the 
character of an unassuming Dane whose conduct was 
most correct, they let him be. With all his money en- 
gaged in cultivation he was naturally careful not to 
give even the shadow of offence, and it was mostly for 
prudential reasons of that sort that he did not look 
with a favourable eye on Jasper Allen. But of that 
later. Yes! One remembered well enough old Nel- 
son's big, hospitable bungalow erected on a shelving 
point of land, his portly form, costumed generally in 
a white shirt and trousers (he had a confirmed habit of 
taking off his alpaca jacket on the slightest provoca- 
tion), his round blue eyes, his straggly, sandy-white 
moustache sticking out all ways like the quills of the 
fretful porcupine, his propensity to sit down suddenly 
and fan himself with his hat. But there's no use con- 
cealing the fact that what one remembered really was 
his daughter, who at that time came out to live with 
him — and be a sort of Lady of the Isles. 



183 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

Freya Nelson (or Nielaen) was the kind of girl one 
remembers. The oval of her face was perfect; and 
■within that fascinating frame the most happy diapo- 
Bition of line and feature, with an admirable complex- 
gave an impression of health, strength, and what 
I might call unconscious self-confidence — a most 
pleasant and, as it were, whimsical determination, I 
will not compare her eyes to violets, because the real 
shade of their colour was peculiar, not so dark and more 
lustrous. They were of the wide-open kind, and 
looked at one frankly in every mood. I never did see 
the long, dark eyelashes lowered - — I dare say Jasper 
Allen did, being a privileged person — but I have no 
doubt that the expression must have been charming in 
a complex way. She could — Jasper told me once 
with a touchingly imbecile exultation — ait on bet 
hair. I dare say, I dare say. It was not for me to 
behold these wonders ; I was content to admire the neat 
and becoming way she used to do it up so as not to 
conceal the good shape of her head. And this ■wealth 
of hair ■was so glossy that when the screens of the west 
verandah were down, making a pleasant twilight there, 
or in the shade of the grove of fruit-trees near the 
house, it seemed to give out a golden light of its o^wn. 

She dressed generally in a white frock, with a skirt 
of walking length, showing her neat, laced, brown boots. 
If there was any colour about her costume it was just 
a bit of blue perhaps. No exertion seemed to distress 
her, I have seen her land from the dinghy after a long 
pull in the sun (she rowed herself about a good deal) 



J 



EREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 183 

with no quickened breath and not a single hair out of 
its place. In the morning when she came out on the 
verandah for the first look westward, Sumatra way, 
over the sea, she seemed as fresh and sparkling as a 
dewdrop. But a dewdrop is evanescent, and there was 
nothing evanescent about Freya. I remember her 
round, solid arms with the fine wrists, and her broad, 
capable hands with tapering fingers. 

I don't know whether she was actually bom at sea, 
but I do know that up to twelve years of age she sailed 
about with her parents in various ships. After old 
Nelson lost his wife it became a matter of serious con- 
cern for him what to do with the girl. A kind lady 
in Singapore, touched by his dumb grief and deplor- 
able perplexity, offered to take charge of Freya. This 
arrangement lasted some six years, during which old 
Nelson (or Nielsen) "retired'' and established him- 
self on his island, and then it was settled (the kind 
lady going away to Europe) that his daughter should 
join him. 

As the first and most important preparation for that 
event the old fellow ordered from his Singapore agent 
a Steyn and Ebhart's " upright grand." I was then 
commanding a little steamer in the island trade, and 
it fell to my lot to take it out to him, so I know some- 
thing of Freya's "upright grand." We landed the 
enormous packing-case with diflSculty on a flat piece 
of rock amongst some bushes, nearly knocking the bot- 
tom out of one of my boats in the course of that nauti- 
cal operation. Then, all my crew assisting, engineers 



184 'TWIST LAND AND SEA 

and firemen included, by the exercise of much anxious 
ingenuity, and by means of rollers, levers, tackles, 
and inclined planes of soaped planks, toiling in the 
Bun like ancient Egyptian* at the building of a pyra- 
mid, we got it as far as the house and up on to the 
I of the west verandah — which was the actual 
drawing-room of the biingalow. There, the ease being 
ripped off cautiously, the beautiful rosewood monster 
stood revealed at last. In reverent excitement we 
coaxed it against the wall and drew the first free breath 
of the day. It was certainly the heaviest movable 
object on that islet since the creation of the world. 
The volume of sound it gave out in that bungalow 
(which acted as a sounding-board) was really astonish- 
ing. It thundered sweetly right over the sea. Jasper 
Allen told me that early of a morning on the deck of 
the Boniio (his wonderfully fast and pretty brig) ho 
could hear Freya playing her scales quite distinctly. 
But the fellow always anchored foolishly close to the 
point, as I told him more than once. Of course, these 
are almost uniformly serene, and the Seven Isles 
is a particularly calm and cloudless spot as a rule. 
But still, now and again, an afternoon thunderstorm 
over Banka, or even one of these vicious thick squalls, 
from the distant Sumatra coast, would make a sudden 
aally upon the group, enveloping it for a couple of 
hours in whirlwinds and bhiish-black murk of a particu- 
larly sinister aspect. Then, with the lowered rattan- 
screens rattling desperately in the wind and the bunga- 
low shaking all over, Freya would sit down to the piano 




FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 185 

and play fierce Wagner music in the flicker of blind- 
ing flashes, with thunderbolts falling all round, enough 
to make your hair stand on end ; and Jasper would re- 
main stock still on the verandah, adoring the back view 
of her supple, swaying figure, the miraculous sheen of 
her fair head, the rapid hands on the keys, the white 
nape of her neck — while the brig, down at the point 
there, surged at her cables within a himdred yards of the 
nasty, shiny, black rock-heads. TJgh! 

And this, if you please, for no reason but that, when 
he went on board at night and laid his head on the 
pillow, he should feel that he was as near as he could 
conveniently get to his Freya slumbering in the bunga- 
low. Did you ever! And, mind, this brig was the 
home to be — their home — the floating paradise 
which he was gradually fitting out like a yacht to sail 
his life blissfully away in with Freya. Imbecile! 
But the fellow was always taking chances. 

One day, I remember I watched with Freya on the 
verandah the brig approaching the point from the 
northward. I suppose Jasper made the girl out with 
his long glass. What does he do? Instead of stand- 
ing on for another mile and a half along the shoals 
and then tacking for the anchorage in a proper and 
seamanlike manner, he spies a gap between two dis- 
gusting old jagged reefs, puts the helm down suddenly, 
and shoots the brig through, with all her sails shaking 
and rattling, so that we could hear the racket on the 
verandah. I drew my breath through my teeth, I can 
tell you, and Freya swore. Yes! She clenched her 



186 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

capable fists and stamped with her pretty brown boot 
and said " Damn 1 " Then, looking at me with a little 
heightened colour — not much — she remarked, " I 
forgot you were there," and laughed. To be sure, to 
be sure. When Jasppr was in sight she was not likely 
to remember that anybody else in the world was there. 
In my concern at this mad trick I couldnH help appeal- 
ing to her sympathetic common sense. 

" Isn't he a fool ? '' I said with feeling. 

" Perfect idiot,'' she agreed warmly, looking at me 
straight with her wid^pen, earnest eyes and the dim- 
pie of a smile on her cheek. 

"And that," I pointed out to her, "just to save 
twenty minutes or so in meeting you." 

We heard the anchor go down, and then she became 
very resolute and threatening. 

" Wait a bit. I'll teach him." 

She went into her own room and shut the door, 
leaving me alone on the verandah with my instructions. 
Long before the brig's sails were furled, Jasper came 
up three steps at a time, forgetting to say how d'ye do, 
and looking right and left eagerly. 

" Where's Freya ? Wasn't she here just now ? " 

When I explained to him that he was to be deprived 
of Miss Freya's presence for a whole hour, " just to 
teach him," he said I had put her up to it, no doubt, 
and that he feared he would have yet to shoot me some 
day. She and I were getting too thick together. Then 
he flung himself into a chair, and tried to talk to me 
about his trip. But the funny thing was that the fel- 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 187 

low actually suffered. I could see it. His voice failed 
him, and lie sat there dumb, looking at the door with 
the face of a man in pain. Fact. . . • And the next 
still funnier thing was that the girl calmly walked out 
of her room in less than ten minutes. And then I left. 
I mean to say that I went away to seek old Nelson (or 
Nielsen) on the back verandah, which was his own spe- 
cial nook in the distribution of that house, with the kind 
purpose of engaging him in conversation lest he should 
start roaming about and intrude unwittingly where he 
was not wanted just then. 

He knew that the brig had arrived, though he did 
not know that Jasper was already with his daughter. 
I suppose he didn't think it was possible in tiie time. 
A father naturally wouldn't. He suspected that Allen 
was sweet on his girl; the fowls of the air and the 
fishes of the sea, most of the traders in the Archipelago, 
and all sorts and conditions of men in the town of 
Singapore were aware of it. But he was not capable 
of appreciating how far the girl was gone on the fellow. 
He had an idea that Ereya was too sensible to ever be 
gone on anybody — I mean to an unmanageable ex- 
tent. No; it was not that which made him sit on the 
back verandah and worry himself in his unassuming 
manner during Jasper's visits. What he worried 
about were the Dutch " authorities.'' For it is a fact 
that the Dutch looked askance at the doings of Jasper 
Allen, owner and master of the brig Bonito. They 
considered him much too enterprising in his trading. 
I don't know that he ever did anythipg illegal; but it 



188 'TWIXT lANB AND SEA 



1 



i: 



seems to me that hla immenae activity was repulsive to 
their stolid character and slow-going methods. Any- 
way, in old Nelson's opinion, the captain of the Boniio 
■was a smart sailor, and a nice young man, but not a 
deslrahle acquaintance upon the whole. Somewhat 
compromising, you understand. On the other hand, 
he did not like to tell Jasper in so many words to keep 
away. Poor old Nelson himself was a nice fellow. I 
believe he would have shrunk from hurting the feel- 
ings even of a mop-headed cannibal, unless, perhaps, 
under very strong provocation. I mean the feelings, 
not the bodies. As against spears, knives, hatchets, 
clubs, or arrows, old Nelson had proved himself capable 
of taking his own part. In every other respect he had 
a timorous soul. So he sat on the hack verandah with 
a concerned expression, and whenever the voices of bis 
daughter and Jasper Allen reached him, he would blow 
out his cheeks and let the air escape with a diamal 
sound, like a much tried man. 

Natiirally I derided his fears which he, more or less, 
confided to me. He bad a certain regard for my 
judgment, and a certain respect, not for my moral 
qualities, however, but for the good terms I was sup- 
posed to be on with the Dutch " authorities." I knew 
for a fact that his greatest bugbear, the Governor of 
Banka — a charming, peppery, hearty, retired rear- 
admiral — had a distinct liking for him. This con* 
Boling assurance wliich I used always to put forward, 
made old Nelson (or Nielsen) brighten up for a mo- 
but in the end he -would shake hia head doubt* 



d 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 189 

fully, as much as to say that this was all very well, but 
that there were depths in the Dutch official nature 
which no one but himself had ever fathomed. Per- 
fectly ridiculous. 

On this occasion I am speaking of, old Nelson was 
even fretty; for while I was trying to entertain him 
with a very funny and somewhat scandalous adventure 
which happened to a certain acquaintance of ours in 
Saigon, he exclaimed suddenly: 

" What the devil he wants to turn up here for 1 " 

Clearly he had not heard a word of the anecdote. 
And this annoyed me, because the anecdote was really 
good. I stared at him. 

" Come, come ! " I cried. " Don't you know what 
Jasper Allen is turning up here for ? " 

This was the first open allusion I had ever made to 
the true state of affairs between Jasper and his daugh- 
ter. He took it very calmly. 

" Oh, Ereya is a sensible girl ! '' he murmured ab- 
sently, his mind's eye obviously fixed on the " author- 
ities." No; Freya was no fooL He was not con- 
cerned about that. He didn't mind it in the least. 
The fellow was just company for her; he amused the 
girl; nothing more. 

When the perspicacious old chap left off mumbling, 
all was still in the house. The other two were amusing 
themselves very quietly, and no doubt very heartily. 
What more absorbing and less noisy amusement could 
they have found than to plan their future? Side bj 
side on the verandah they must have been looking a 



190 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

the brig, the third party in that fascinating game. 
Without her there would have been no future. She 
was the fortune and the home, and the great free world 
for them. Who was it that likened a ship to a prison ? 
May I be ignominiously hanged at a yardarm if that's 
true. The white sails of that craft were the white 
wings — pinions, I believe, would be the more poetical 
style — well, the white pinions, of their soaring love. 
Soaring as regards Jasper. Freya, being a woman, 
kept a better hold of the mundane connections of this 
affair. 

But Jasper was elevated in the true sense of the 
word ever since the day when, after they had been 
gazing at the brig in one of those decisive silences 
that alone establish a perfect communion between 
creatures gifted with speech, he proposed that she 
should share the ownership of that treasure with him. 
Indeed, he presented the brig to her altogether. But 
then his heart was in the brig since the day he bought 
her in Manilla from a certain middle-aged Peruvian, 
in a sober suit of black broadcloth, enigmatic and 
sententious, who, for all I know, might have stolen 
her on the South American coast, whence he said he 
had come over to the Philippines " for family rea- 
sons." This " for family reasons " was distinctly 
good. No true cahallero would care to push on in- 
quiries after such a statement. 

Indeed, Jasper was quite the cahallero. The brig 
herself was then all black and enigmatical, and very 
dirty; a tarnished gem of the sea, or, rather, a neg- 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 191 

lected work of art. For he must have been an artist, 
the obscure builder who had put her body together on 
lovely lines out of the hardest tropical timber fastened 
with the purest copper. Goodness only knows in what 
part of the world she was built. Jasper himself had 
not been able to ascertain much of her history from 
his sententious, saturnine Peruvian — if the fellow was 
a Peruvian, and not the devil himself in disguise, as 
Jasper jocularly pretended to believa My opinion is 
that she was old enough to have been one of the last 
pirates, a slaver perhaps, or else an opium clipper of 
the early days, if not an opium smuggler. 

However that may be, she was as sound as on the 
day she first took the water, sailed like a witch, steered 
like a little boat, and, like some fair women of ad- 
venturous life famous in history, seemed to have the 
secret of perpetual youth; so that there was nothing 
unnatural in Jasper Allen treating her like a lover. 
And that treatment restored the lustre of her beauty. 
He clothed her in many coats of the very best white 
paint so skilfully, carefully, artistically put on and kept 
clean by his badgered crew of picked Malays, that no 
costly enamel such as jewellers use for their work 
eould have looked better and felt smoother to the touch. 
A narrow gilt moulding defined her elegant sheer as 
ahe sat on the water, eclipsing easily the professional 
good looks of any pleasure yacht that ever came to the 
East in those days. For myself, I must say I prefer a 
moulding of deep crimson colour on a white hull. It 
pves a stronger reUef besides being less expensive; and 



192 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

I told Jasper so. But no, nothing less than the best 
gold-leaf would do, because no decoration could be gor- 
geous enough for the future abode of his Freya. 

His feelings for the brig and for the girl were as in- 
dissolubly united in his heart as you may fuse two 
precious metals together in one crucible. And the 
flame was pretty hot, I can assure you. It induced 
in him a fierce inward restlessness both of activity and 
desire. Too fine in face, with a lateral wave in his 
chestnut hair, spare, long-limbed, with an eager glint 
in his steely eyes and quick, brusque movements, he 
made me think sometimes of a flashing sword-blade 
perpetually leaping out of the scabbard. It was only 
when he was near the girl, when he had her there to 
look at, that this peculiarly tense attitude was replaced 
by a grave devout watchfulness of her slightest move- 
ments and utterances. Her cool, resolute, capable, I 
good-humoured self-possession seemed to steady his 
heart. Was it the magic of her face, of her voice, of 
her glances which calmed him so ? Yet these were the 
very things one must believe which had set his imagina- 
tion ablaze — if love begins in imagination. But I am 
no man to discuss such mysteries, and it strikes me 
that we have neglected poor old Nelson inflating his 
cheeks in a state of worry on the back verandah. 

I pointed out to him that, after all, Jasper was not a 
very frequent visitor. He and his brig worked hard 
all over the Archipelago. But all old Nelson said, and 
he said it uneasily, was : ( 



i 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 193 



ii 



I hope Heemskirk won't turn up here while the 
brig's about." 

Getting up a scare about Heemskirk now! Heems- 
kirk I . . • Keally, one hadn't the patience 

II 

Fob, pray, who was Heemskirk? You shall see at 
once how unreasonable this dread of Heemskirk. . . . 
Certainly, his nature was malevolent enough. That 
was obvious, directly you heard him laugh. Nothing 
gives away more a man's secret disposition than the 
unguarded ring of his laugh. But, bless my soul! if 
we were to start at every evil guffaw like a hare at 
every sound, we shouldn't be fit for. anything, but the 
solitude of the desert, or the seclusion of a hermitage. 
And even there we should have to put up with the un- 
avoidable company of the devil. 

However, the devil is a considerable personage, who 
has known better days and has moved high up in the 
hierarchy of Celestial Host; but in the hierarchy of 
mere earthly Dutchmen, Heemskirk, whose early days 
could not have been very splendid, was merely a naval 
oflScer forty years of age, of no particular connections 
or ability to boast of. He was commanding the 
Neptun, a little gunboat employed on dreary patrol 
duty up and down the Archipdago, to look after the 
traders. Not a very exalted position truly. I tell 
you, just a common middle-aged lieutenant of some 



19i 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 



twenty-five years' service and sure to be retired before 
long — that's all. 

He never bothered hia head very much as to what 
was going on in the Seven Isles group till he learned 
from some talk in Mintok or Palembang, I suppose, 
that there was a pretty girl living there. Curiosity, I 
presume, caused him lo go poking around that way, and 
then, after he had once seen Freya, he made a practice 
of calling at the group whenever he found himself 
within half a day's steaming from it, 

I don't mean to say that Heemakirk was a tj'pical 
Dutch na\-al officer. I have seen enough of them not 
to fall into that absurd mistake. He had a big, clean- 
shaven face; great fiat, broi;!! cheeks, with a thin, 
hooked nose and ^ small, pursy mouth squeezed in be- 
tween. There were a few silver threads in his black 
hair, and his unpleasant eyes were nearly black, too. 
He had a surly way of easting side glances without 
moving his head, which was set low on a short, round 
neck, A thick, round trunk in a dark undress jacket 
with gold shoulder-straps, was sustained by a straddly 
pair of thick, round legs, in white drill trousers. His 
round skull under a white cap looked as if it were im- 
mensely thick too, hut there were brains enough in it 
to discover and take advantage maliciously of poor old 
Nelson's nervousness before everything that was in- 
vested with the merest shred of authority, 

Heemskirk wotild land on the point and perambulate 
ailently every part of the plantation as if the wholo 
place belonged to him, before he went to the houBCk 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 195 

On the verandah he would take the best chair, and 
would stay for tiflSn or dinner, just simply stay on, 
without taking the trouble to invite himself by so much 
as a word. 

He ought to have been kicked, if only for his manner 
to Miss Freya. Had he been a naked savage, armed 
with spears and poisoned arrows, old Nelson (or Niel- 
sen) would have gone for him with his bare fists. But 
these gold shoulder-straps — Dutch shoulder-straps at 
that — were enough to terrify the old fellow ; so he let 
the beggar treat him with heavy contempt, devour his 
daughter with his eyes, and drink the best part of his 
little stock of wine. 

I saw something of this, and on one occasion I tried 
to pass a remark on the subject. It was pitiable to 
see the trouble in old Nelson's round eyes. At first 
he cried out that the lieutenant was a good friend of 
his; a very good fellow. I went on staring at him 
pretty hard, so that at last he faltered, and had to 
own that, of course, Heemskirk was not a very genial 
person outwardly, but aU the same at bottom. • • • 

" I haven't yet met a genial Dutchman out here,'' 
I interrupted. " Geniality, after all, is not of much 
consequence, but don't you see " 

Nelson looked suddenly so frightened at what I was 
going to say that I hadn't the heart to go on. Of 
course, I was going to tell him that the fellow was 
after his girl. That just describes it exactly. What 
Heemskirk might have expected or what he thought 
he could do, I don't know. For all I can tell, he might 



196 'TWIXT LAND AJUD SEA 

have imagined himself irresistible, or have taken Freya 
for what she was not, on account of her lively, as- 
Bured, unconstrained manner. But there it is. He 
■was after that girl. Kelson eould see it vrell enough. 
Only he preferred to ignore it. He did not want to be 
told of it. 

"All I want is to live in peace and quietness with 
the Dutch authorities," he mumbled shamefacedly. 

He was incurable. I was sorry for him, and I really 
think Miss Freya was sorry for her father, tcm. She 
restrained herself for his sake, and as everything she 
did she did it simply, unaffectedly, and even good 
humouredly. No small effort that, because in Heems- 
kirk's attentions there was an insolent touch of scorn, j 
hard to put up with, Dutchmen of that sort are over- 
bearing to their inferiors, and that officer of the king 
looked upon old Nelson and Freya as quite beneath 
him in every way. 

I can't say I felt sorry for Freya. She was not the 
sort of girl to take anything tragically. One could feel 
for her and sympathise with her difficulty, but she 
seemed equal to any situation. It was rather admira- 
tion she extorted by her competent serenity. It waa N 
only when Jasper and Heemskirk were together at the 
bungalow, as it happened now and then, that she felt 
the strain, and even then it was not for everybody to 
see. My eyes alone could detect a faint shadow on 
the radiance of her personality. Once I could not 
help saying to her appreciatively: 
r " Upon my word you are wonderful." 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 197 

She let it pass with a faint smile. 

'^ The great thing is to prevent Jasper becoming un- 
peasonable/' she said; and I could see real concern 
Lurking in the quiet depths of her frank eyes gazing 
straight at me. "You will help to keep him quiet, 
won't you ? '^ 

" Of course, we must keep him quiet," I declared, 
understanding very well the nature of her anxiety. 
^^ He's such a limatic, too, when he's roused." 

" He is 1 " she assented, in a soft tone ; for it was 
our joke to speak of Jasper abusively. " But I have 
tamed him a bit. He's quite a good boy now." 

** He would squash Heemskirk like a blackbeetle all 
the same," I remarked. 

" Rather ! " she murmured. " And that wouldn't 
do," she added quickly. " Imagine the state poor 
papa would get into. Besides, I mean to be mistress of 
the dear brig and sail about these seas, not go off 
wandering ten thousand miles away from here." 

" The sooner you are on board to look after the man 
and the brig the better," I said seriously. ^^ They 
need you to steady them both a bit. I don't think 
Jasper will ever get sobered down till he has carried 
you off from this island. You don't see him when he 
is away from you, as I do. He's in a state of perpetual 
elation which almost frightens me." 

At this she smiled again, and then looked serious. 
For it eould not be unpleasant to her to be told of 
her power, and she had some sense of her responsibilit 
She slipped away from me suddenly, because Heen 



198 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA ) 

kirk^ with old Nelson in attendance at his elbow, was 
coming up the steps of the verandah. Directly his j 
head came above the level of the floor his ill-natured •* 
black eyes shot glances here and there. ' 

"Where's your girl, Nelson?'' he asked, in a tone | 
as if every soul in the world belonged to him. And 
then to me : " The goddess has flown, eh ? " ' 

Nelson's Cove — as we used to call it — was ' 
crowded with shipping that day. There was first my , 
steamer, then the Neptun gunboat further out, and the ' 
Bonito, brig, anchored as usual so close inshore that it I 
looked as if, vith a little skill and judgment, one 
could shy a hat from the verandah on to her scrupu- ( 
lously holystoned quarter-deck. Her brasses flashed » 
like gold, her white body-paint had a sheen like a satin 
robe. The rake of her varnished spars and the big 
yards, squared to a hair, gave her a sort of martial ele- 
gance. She was a beauty. No wonder that in pos- 
session of a craft like that and the promise of a girl 
like Freya, Jasper lived in a state of perpetual elation 
fit, perhaps, for the seventh heaven, but not exactly 
safe in a world like ours. 

I remarked politely to Heemskirk that, with three 
guests in the house. Miss Freya had no doubt domestic 
matters to attend to. I knew, of course, that she had 
gone to meet Jasper at a certain cleared spot on the 
banks of the only stream on Nelson's little island. 
The commander of the Neptun gave me a dubious 
black look, and began to make himself at home, fling- 
ing his thick, cylindrical carcass into a rocking-chair, 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 199 

and unbuttoning his coat. Old Nelson sat down op- 
posite him in a most unassuming manner, staring anx- 

- iously with his round eyes and fanning himself with 
his hat. I tried to make conversation to while the 
time away ; not an easy task with a morose, enamoured 
Dutchman constantly looking from one door to an- 

i other and answering one's advances either with a jeer 

* or a grunt. 

/ However, the evening passed off all right. Luckily, 
there is a degree of bliss too intense for elation. Jasper 
was quiet and concentrated silently in watching Freya. 
As we went on board our respective ships I offered to 
give his brig a tow out next morning. I did it on pur- 
pose to get him away at the earliest possible moment. 
So in the first cold light of the dawn we passed by 
the gunboat lying black and still without a sound in 
her at the mouth of the glassy cove. But with tropical 
swiftness the sun had climbed twice its diameter 
above the horizon before we had rounded the reef and 
got abreast of the point. On the biggest boulder there 
stood Freya, all in white and, in her helmet, like a 
feminine and martial statue with a rosy face, as I could 
see very well with my glasses. She fluttered an ex- 
pressive handkerchief, and Jasper, running up the 
main rigging of the white and warlike brig, waved his 
hat in response. Shortly afterwards we parted, I to 
the northward and Jasper heading east with a light 
wind on the quarter, for Banjermassin and two other 
ports, I believe it was, that trip. 

This peaceful occasion was the last on which I saw 



200 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

all these people assembled together; the charmingly 
fresh and resolute Freya, the innocently round-eyed old 
Nelson, Jasper, keen, long limbed, lean faced, ad- 
mirably self-contained, in his manner, because incon- 
ceivably happy under the eyes of his Freya; all three 
tall, fair, and blue-eyed in varied shades, and amongst 
them the swarthy, arrogant, black-haired Dutchman, 
shorter nearly by a head, and so much thicker than 
any of them that he seemed to be a creature capable of 
inflating itself, a grotesque specimen of mankind from 
some other planet. 

The contrast struck me all at once as we stood in the 
Ughted verandah, after rising from the dinner-table. 
I was fascinated by it for the rest of the evening, and 
I remember the impression of something funny and ill- 
omened at the same time in it to this day. 

Ill 

A FEW weeks later, coming early one morning into 
Singapore, from a journey to the southward, I saw the 
brig lying at anchor in all her usual symmetry and 
splendour of aspect as though she had been taken out 
of a glass case and put delicately into the water that 
very moment. 

She was well out in the roadstead, but I steamed in 
and took up my habitual berth close in front of the 
town. Before we had finished breakfast a quarter- 
master came to tell me that Captain Allen's boat was 
coming our way. 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 201 

His smart gig dashed alongside, and in two bounds 
he was up our accommodation-ladder and shaking me 
by the hand with his nervous grip, his eyes snapping 
inquisitively, for he supposed I had called at the Seven 
Isles group on my way. I reached into my pocket for 
a nicely folded little note, which he grabbed out of my 
hand without ceremony and carried off on the bridge 
to read by himself. After a decent interval I fol- 
lowed him up there, and found him pacing to and fro; 
for the nature of his emotions made him restless even 
in his most thoughtful moments. 

He shook his head at me triumphantly. 

" Well, my dear boy,'' he said, " I shall be counting 
the days now." 

I understood what he meant. I knew that those 
young people had settled already on a runaway match 
without official preliminaries. This was really a 
logical decision. Old Nelson (or Neilsen) would 
never have agreed to give up Freya peaceably to this 
compromising Jasper. Heavens! What would the 
Dutch authorities say to such a match ! It sounds too 
ridiculous for words. But there's nothing in the world 
more selfishly hard than a timorous man in a fright 
about his " little estate," as old Nelson used to call it 
in apologetic accents. A heart permeated by a par- 
ticular sort of funk is proof against sense, feeling, and 
ridicule. It's a flint. 

Jasper would have made his request all the same 
and then taken his own way; but it was Freya who 
decided that nothing should be said, on the ground that, 



202 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" Papa would only worry himself to distraction/' He 
was capable of making himself ill, and then she 
wouldn't have the heart to leave him. Here you have 
the sanity of feminine outlook and the frankness of 
feminine reasoning. And for the rest, Miss Freya 
could read " poor dear papa '' in the way a woman 
reads a man — like an open book. His daughter once 
gone, old Nelson would not worry himself. He would 
raise a great outcry, and make no end of lamentable 
fuss, but that's not the same thing. The real agonies 
of indecision, the anguish of conflicting feelings would 
be spared to him. And as he was too unassuming to 
rage, he would, after a period of lamentation, devote 
himself to his " little estate," and to keeping on good 
terms with the authorities. 

Time would do the rest. And Freya thought she 
could afford to wait, while ruling over her own home 
in the beautiful brig and over the man who loved her. 
This was the life for her who had learned to walk on a 
ship's deck. She was a ship-child, a sea-girl if ever 
there was one. And of course she loved Jasper and 
trusted him; but there was a shade of anxiety in her 
pride. It is very fine and romantic to possess for your 
very own a finely tempered and trusty sword-blade, but 
whether it is the best weapon to counter with the 
common cudgel-play of Fate — that's another question. 

She knew that she had the more substance of the 
two — you needn't try any cheap jokes, I am not talk- 
ing of their weights. She was just a little anxious 
while he was away, and she had me who, being a tried 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 208 

confidant, took the liberty to whisper frequently " The 
sooner the better." But there was a peculiar vein of 
obstinacy in Miss Freya, and her reason for delay was 
characteristic. " Not before my twenty-first birthday ; 
so that there shall be no mistake in people's minds as 
to me being old enough to know what I am doing.'' 

Jasper's feelings were in such subjection that he had 
never even remonstrated against the decree. She was 
just splendid, whatever she did or said, and there was 
an end of it for him. I believe that he was subtle 
enough to be even fiattered at bottom — at times. And 
then to console him he had the brig which seemed per- 
vaded by the spirit of Freya, since whatever he did on 
board was always done under the supreme sanction of 
his love. 

" Yes. I'll soon begin to count the days," he re- 
peated. " Eleven months more. I'll have to crowd 
three trips into that." 

"Mind you don't come to grief trying to do too 
much," I admonished him. But he dismissed my 
caution with a laugh and an elated gesture. Poohl 
Nothing, nothing could happen to the brig, he cried, 
as if the fiame of his heart could light up the dark 
nights of uncharted seas, and the image of Freya serve 
for an unerring beacon amongst hidden shoals ; as if the 
winds had to wait on his future, the stars fight for it 
in their courses ; as if the magic of his passion had the 
power to float a ship on a drop of dew or sail her 
through the eye of a needle — simply because it was 
her magnificent lot to be the servant of a love so full 



204 'TWIXT LAND AXD SEA 

of grace as to make all the ways of the earth safe, re- 
splendent, and easy. 

" I suppose/' I said, after he had finished laughing 
at my innocent enough remark, " I suppose you will be 
off to-day.'' 

That was what he meant to do. He had not gone 
at daylight only because he expected me to come in. 

" And only fancy what has happened yesterday," 
he went on. "My mate left me suddenly. Had to. 
And as there's nobody to be found at a short notice I 
am going to take Schultz with me. The notorious 
Schultz ! Why don't you jump out of your skin ? I 
tell you I went and unearthed Schultz late last even- ; 
ing, after no end of trouble. ' I am your man, cap- 
tain,' he says, in that wonderful voice of his, ^ but I am 
sorry to confess I have practically no clothes to my 
back. I have had to sell all my wardrobe to get a 
little food from day to day.' What a voice that man 
has got. Talk about moving stones 1 But people seem 
to get used to it. I had never seen him before, and, 
upon my word, I felt suddenly tears rising to my eyes. 
Luckily it was dusk. He was sitting very quiet under 
a tree in a native compound as thin as a lath, and when 
1 peered down at him all he had on was an old cotton 
singlet and a pair of ragged pyjamas. I bought him 
six white suits and two pairs of canvas shoes. Can't 
clear the ship without a mate. Must have somebody. 
I am going on shore presently to sign him on, and I 
shall take him with me as I go back on board to get 
under way. Now, I am a lunatic — am I not ? Mad, 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 205 

of course. Come on ! Lay it on thick. Let yourself 
go. I like to see you get excited." 

He so evidently expected me to scold that I took 
especial pleasure in exaggerating the calmness of my 
attitude. 

" The worst that can be brought up against Schultz," 
I began, folding my arms and speaking dispassionately, 
" is an awkward habit of stealing the stores of every 
ship he has ever been in. He will do it. That's really 
all that's wrong. I don't credit absolutely that story 
Captain Robinson tells of Schultz conspiring in 
Chantabun with some ruffians in a Chinese junk to 
steal the anchor off the starboard bow of the Bohemian 
Girl schooner. Robinson's story is too ingenious al- 
together. That other tale of the engineers of the Nan- 
Shan finding Schultz at midnight in the engine-room 
busy hammering at the brass bearings to carry them off 
for sale on shore seems to me more authentic. Apart 
from this little weakness, let me tell you that Schultz 
is a smarter sailor than many who never took a drop 
of drink in their lives, and perhaps no worse morally 
than some men you and I know who have never stolen 
the value of a penny. He may not be a desirable per- 
son to have on board one's ship, but since you have no 
choice he may be made to do, I believe. The impor- 
tant thing is to understand his psychology. Don't give 
him any money till you have done with him. Not a 
cent, if he begs you ever so. For as sure as Fate the 
monient you give him any money he will begin to steal. 
Just remember that." 



206 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

I enjoyed Jasper's incredulous surprise. 

" The devil he will ! '' he cried. " What on earth 
for ? Aren't you trying to pull my leg, old boy ? '' 

" No. I'm not. You must understand Schultz's 
psychology. He's neither a loafer nor a cadger. He's 
not likely to wander about looking for somebody to 
stand him drinks. But suppose he goes on shore with 
five dollars, or fifty for that matter, in his pocket! | 
After the third or fourth glass he becomes fuddled and 
charitable. He either drops his money all over the 
place, or else distributes the lot around ; gives it to any 
one who will take it. Then it occurs to him that the 
night is young yet, and that he may require a good 
many more drinks for himself and his friends before 
morning. So he starts off cheerfully for his ship. 
His legs never get affected nor his head either in the 
usual way. He gets aboard and simply grabs the 
first thing that seems to him suitable — the cabin lamp, 
a coil of rope, a bag of biscuits, a drum of oil — 
and converts it into money without thinking twice 
about it This is the process and no other. You have 
only to look out that he doesn't get a start That's 
all." > 

" Confound his psychology," muttered Jasper. 
" But a man with a voice like his is fit to talk to the 
angels. Is he incurable do you think?" 

I said that I thought so. Nobody had prosecuted 
him yet, but no one would employ him any longer. 
His end would be, I feared, to starve in some hole or 
other. 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 207 

" Ah, well," reflected Jasper. " The Bonito isn't 
trading to any ports of civilisation. That'll make it 
easier for him to keep straight." 

That was true. The brig's business was on un- 
civilised coasts, with obscure rajahs dwelling in nearly 
unknown bays; with native settlements up myterious 
rivers opening their sombre, forest-lined estuaries 
among a welter of pale green reefs and dazzling sand- 
banks, in lonely straits of calm blue water all aglitter 
with sunshine. Alone, far from the beaten tracks, she 
glided, all white, round dark, frowning headlands, stole 
out, silent like a ghost, from behind points of land 
stretching out all black in the moonlight; or lay hove- 
to, like a sleeping sea-bird, under the shadow of some 
nameless mountain waiting for a signaL She would 
be glimpsed suddenly on misty, squally days dashing 
disdainfully aside the short aggressive waves of the 
Java Sea; or be seen far, far away, a tiny dazzling 
white speck flying across the brooding purple masses 
of thunderclouds piled up on the horizon. Sometimes, 
on the rare mail tracks, where civilisation brushes 
against wild mystery, when the naive passengers crowd- 
ing along the rail exclaimed, pointing at her with 
interest : " Oh, here's a yacht 1 " the Dutch captain, 
with a hostile glance, would grunt contemptuously: 
" Yacht 1 Nol That's only English Jasper. A 
pedlar ^" 

" A good seaman you say," ejaculated Jasper, still 
in the matter of the hopeless Schultz with the wonder- 
fully touching voice. 



208 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" First rate. Ask any one. Quite worth having — 
only impossible/' I declared. 

" He shall have his chance to reform in the brig," 
said Jasper, with a laugh. " There will be no tempta- 
tions either to drink or steal where I am going to this 
time.'' 

I didn't press him for anything more definite on that 
point. In fact, intimate as we were, I had a pretty 
clear notion of the general run of his business. 

But as we are going ashore in his gig he asked sud- 
denly: "By the way, do you know where Heemskirk 
is?" 

I eyed him covertly, and was reassured. He had 
asked the question, not as a lover, but as a trader. I 
told him that I had heard in Palembang that the 
Neptun was on duty down about Flores and Sumbawa. 
Quite out of his way. He expressed his satisfaction. 

" You know," he went on, " that fellow, when he gets 
on the Borneo coast, amuses himself by knocking down 
my beacons. I have had to put up a few to help me 
in and out of the rivers. Early this year a Celebes 
trader becalmed in a prau was watching him at it. He 
steamed the gunboat full tilt at two of them, one after 
another, smashing them to pieces, and then lowered 
a boat on purpose to pull out a third, which I had a 
lot of trouble six months ago to stick up in the middle 
of a mudflat for a tide mark. Did you ever hear 
of anything more provoking — eh ? " 

" I wouldn't quarrel with the beggar," I observed 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 209 

casually, yet disliking that piece of news strongly. 
" It isn't worth while." 

" I quarrel ? " cried Jasper. " I don't want to 
quarrel. I don't want to hurt a single hair of his 
ugly head. My dear fellow, when I think of Freya's 
twenty-first birthday, all the world's my friend, Heems- 
kirk included. It's a nasty, spiteful amusement, all 
the same." 

We parted rather hurriedly on the quay, each of us 
having his own pressing business to attend to. I would 
have been very much cut up had I known that this 
hurried grasp of the hand with " So long, old boy. 
Good luck to you ! " was the last of our partings. 

On his return to the Straits I was away, and he 
was gone again before I got back. He was trying to 
achieve three trips before Freya's twenty-first birth- 
day. At Nelson's Cove I missed him again by only a 
couple of days. Freya and I talked of " that lunatic " 
and " perfect idiot " with great delight and infinite ap- 
preciation. She was very radiant, with a more pro- 
nounced gaiety, notwithstanding that she had just 
parted from Jasper. But this was to be their last 
separation. 

" Do get aboard as soon as you can, Miss Freya," I 
entreated. 

She looked me straight in the face, her colour a little 
heightened and with a sort of solemn ardour — if there 
was a little catch in her voice. 

** The very next day." 



210 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

Ah, yes! The very next day after her twenty-first 
birthday. I was pleased at this hint of deep feeling. 
It was as if she had grown impatient at last of the 
self-imposed delay. I supposed that Jasper's recent 
visit had told heavily. 

" That's right," I said approvingly. " I shall be ^ 
much easier *in my mind when I know you have taken I 
charge of that lunatic. Don't you lose a minute. He, | 
of course, will be on time — unless heavens fall." j 

"Yes. Unless ^" she repeated in a thoughtful 

whisper, raising her eyes to the evening sky without ' 
a speck of cloud anywhere. Silent for a time, we let I 
our eyes wander over the waters below, looking mys- , 
teriously still in the twilight, as if trustfully composed 
for a long, long dream in the warm, tropical night 
And the peace all round us seemed without limits and I 
without end. 

And then we began again to talk Jasper over in our 
usual strain. We agreed that he was too reckless in 
many ways. Luckily, the brig was equal to the situa- 
tion. Nothing apparently was too much for her. A 
perfect darling of a ship, said Miss Freya. She and 
her father had spent an afternoon on board. Jasper 
had given them some tea. Papa was grumpy. . . . 
I had a vision of old Nelson under the brig's snowy 
awnings, nursing his unassuming vexation, and fanning 
himself with his hat. A comedy father. • » • As a 
new instance of Jasper's lunacy, I was told that he' was 
distressed at his inability to have solid silver handles 
fitted to all the cabin doors. "As if I would have 



FEEYA OP THE SEVEN ISLES 211 

let him ! " commented Miss Freya, with amused in- 
dignation. Incidentally, I learned also that Schultz, 
the nautical kleptomaniac with the pathetic voice, was 
still hanging on to his job, with Miss Freya's approval. 
Jasper had confided to the lady of his heart his purpose 
of straightening out the fellow's psychology. Yes, in- 
deed. All the world was his friend because it breathed 
the same air with Freya. 

Somehow or other, I brought Heemskirk's name into 
conversation, and, to my great surprise, startled Miss 
Freya. Her eyes expressed something like distress, 
while she bit her lip as if to contain an explosion of 
laughter. Oh 1 Yes. Heemskirk was at the bungalow 
at the same time with Jasper, but he arrived the day 
after. He left the same day as the brig, but a few 
hours later, 

" What a nuisance he must have been to you two," 
I said feelingly. 

Her eyes flashed at me a sort of frightened merri- 
ment, and suddenly she exploded into a clear burst of 
laughter, " Ha, ha, ha ! " 

I echoed it heartily, but not with the same charming 
tone : " Ha, ha, ha ! . . . Isn't he grotesque ? Ha, ha, 
ha ! " And the ludicrousness of old Nelson's inanely 
fierce round eyes in association with his conciliatory 
manner to the lieutenant presenting itself to my mind 
brought on another fit. 

" He look&," I spluttered, " he looks — Ha, ha, ha ! 
— amongst you three . . . like an unhappy black- 
beetle. Ha, ha, ha ! " 



212 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

She gave out another ringing peal, ran off into her 
own room, and slammed the door behind her, leaving 
me profoundly astounded. I stopped laughing at once. 

"What's the joke?" asked old Nelson's voice, half 
wayMown the steps. 

He came up, sat down, and blew out his cheeks, look- 
ing inexpressibly fatuous. But I didn't want to laugh 
any more. And what on earth, I asked myself, have we 
been laughing at in this uncontrollable fashion, I felt 
suddenly depressed. 

Oh, yes. Freya had started it. The girl's over- 
wrought, I thought. And really one couldn't wonder 
at it 

I had no answer to old Nelson's question, but he was 
too aggrieved at Jasper's visit to think of anything 
elsa He as good as asked me whether I wouldn't 
undertake to hint to Jasper that he was not wanted at 
the Seven Isles group. I declared that it was not nec- 
essary. From certain circumstances which had come to 
my knowledge lately, I had reason to think that he would 
not be much troubled by Jasper Allen in the future. 

He emitted an earnest " Thank God ! " which nearly 
set me laughing again, but he did not brighten up 
proportionately. It seemed Heemskirk had taken spe- 
cial pains to make himself disagreeable. The lieuten- 
ant had frightened old Nelson very much by expressing 
a sinister wonder at the Government permitting a white 
man to settle down in that part at all. " It is against 
our declared policy," he had remarked. He had also 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 213 

charged him with being in reality no better than an 
Englishman, ^e had even tried to pick a quarrel with 
him for not learning to speak Dutch. 

" I told him I was too old to learn now," sighed out 
old Nelson (or Nielsen) dismally. " He said I ought 
to have learned Dutch long before. I had been making 
my living in Dutch dependencies. It was disgraceful 
of me not to speak Dutch, he said. He was as savage 
with me as if I had been a Chinaman.'^ 

It was plain he had been viciously badgered. He did 
not mention how many bottles of his best claret he had 
offered up on the altar of conciliation. It must have 
been a generous libation. But old Nelson (or Neilsen) 
was really hospitable. He didn't mind that; and 
I only regretted that this virtue should be lavished on 
the lieutenant-commander of the Neptun. I longed 
to tell him that in all probability he would be relieved 
from Heemskirk's visitations also. I did not do so 
only from the fear (absurd, I admit) of arousing some 
sort of suspicion in his mind. As if with this guileless 
comedy father such a thing were possible ! 

Strangely enough, the last words on the subject of 
Heemskirk were spoken by Freya, and in that very 
sense. The lieutenant was turning up persistently in 
old Nelson's conversation at dinner. At last I mut- 
tered a half audible " Damn the lieutenant." I could 
see that the girl was getting exasperated, too. 

" And he wasn't well at all — was he, Freya ? " old 
Nelson' went on moaning. " Perhaps it was that which 



214 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

made him so snappish^ hey, Freya? He looked very 
bad when he left us so suddenly. His liver must be iu 
a bad state, too." 

" Oh, he will end by getting over it," said Freya im- 
patiently. " And do leave off worrying about him, 
papa. Very likely you won't see much of him for a 
long time to come." 

The look she gave me in exchange for my discreet 
smile had no hidden mirth in it. Her eyes seemed 
hollowed, her face gone wan in a couple of hours. We 
had been laughing too much. Overwrought! Over- 
wrought by the approach of the decisive moment. 
After all, sincere, courageous, and self-reliant as she 
was, she must have felt both the passion and the com- 
punction of her resolve. The very strength of love 
which had carried her up to that point must have put 
her under a great moral strain, in which there might 
have been a little simple remorse, too. For she was 
honest — and there, across the table, sat poor old Nelson 
(or Nielsen) staring at her, round-eyed and so pathetic- 
ally comic in his fierce aspect as to touch the most light- 
some heart. 

He retired early to his room to soothe himself for a 
night's rest by perusing his account-books. We two 
remained on the verandah for another hour or so, but 
we exchanged only languid phrases on things without 
importance, as though we had been emotionally jaded 
by our long day's talk on the only momentous subject. 
And yet there was something she might have told a 
friend. But she didn't. We parted silently. She 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 215 

distrusted my masculine lack of common sense, perhaps. 
. . . O! Freyal 

Going down the precipitous path to the landing-stage, 
I was confronted in the shadows of boulders and bushes 
by a draped feminine figure whose appearance startled 
me at first. It glided into my way suddenly from be- 
hind a piece of rock. But in a moment it occurred to 
me that it could be no one else but Freya's maid, a half- 
caste Malacca Portuguese. One caught fleeting 
glimpses of her olive face and dazzling white teeth 
about the house. I had also observed her at times from 
a distance, as she sat within call under the shade of 
some fruit trees, brushing and plaiting her long raven 
locks. It seemed to be the principal occupation of her 
leisure hotfrs. We had often exchanged nods and smiles 
— and a few words, too. She was a pretty creature. 
And once I had watched her approvingly make funny 
and expressive grimaces behind Heemskirk's back. I 
understood (from Jasper) that she was in the secret, 
like a comedy camerista. She was to accompany Freya 
on her irregular way to matrimony and " ever after ^^ 
happiness. Why should she be roaming by night near 
the cove — unless on some love affair of her own — I 
asked myself. But there was nobody suitable within 
the Seven Isles group, as far as I knew. It flashed 
upon me that it was myself she had been lying in wait 
for. 

She hesitated, muffled from head to foot, shadowy 
and bashful. I advanced another pace, and how I felt 
is nobody's business. 



216 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" What is it ? " I asked, very low. 

" Nobody knows I am here/' she whispered. 

" And nobody can see us/* I whispered back. 

The murmur of words " I've been so frightened " 
reached me. Just then forty feet above our head, from 
the yet lighted verandah, unexpected and startling, 
Freya's voice rang out in a clear, imperious call: 

" Antonia I '' 

With a stifled exclamation, the hesitating girl van- 
ished out of the path. A bush near by rustled; then 
silence. I waited wondering. The lights on the 
verandah went out. I waited a while longer then con- 
tinued down the path to my boat, wondering more than 
ever. 

I remember the occurrences of .that visit especially, 
because this was the last time I saw the Nelson bunga- 
low. On arriving at the Straits I found cable mes- 
sages which made it necessary for me to throw up my 
employment at a moment's notice and go home at once. 
I had a desperate scramble to catch the mail-boat which 
was due to leave next day, but I found time to write two 
short notes, one to Freya, the other to Jasper. Later 
on I wrote at length, this time to Allen alone. I got no 
answer. I hunted up then his brother, or, rather, half- 
brother, a solicitor in the city, a sallow, calm, little man 
who looked at me over his spectacles thoughtfully. 

Jasper was the only child of his father's second mar- 
riage, a transaction which had failed to commend itself 
to the first, grown-up family. 

" You haven't heard for ages," I repeated, with 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEX ISLES 217 

secret annoyanoe. " May I ask \rhat * for agje« ^ mo;iw^ 
in this connection f " 

" It means that I d<m't care whether I ever hoAr 
from him or not/' retorted the little man of law, tnru* 
ing nasty suddenly, 

I could not blame Jasper for not wasting his time 
in correspondence with such an outrageous relative* 
But why didn't he write to me — a decent sort of 
friend, after all; enough of a friend to find for hivS 
silence the excuse of forgetfulness natural to a state of 
transcendental bliss? I waited indulgently, but noth- 
ing ever came. And the East seemed to drop out of 
my life without an echo, like a stone falling into a well 
of prodigious depth. 

IV 

I SUPPOSE praiseworthy motives are a sufficient justifi- 
cation almost for anything. What could be more com- 
mendable in the abstract than a girl's determination 
that "poor papa" should not be worried, and her 
anxiety that the man of her choice should be kept by 
any means from every occasion of doing something 
rash, something which might endanger the whole 
scheme of their happiness ? 

Nothing could be more tender and more pmdifnt* 
We must also remember the girl's self-reliant t^5iTijiera- 
ment, and the general unwillingness of womrrn — T 
mean women of sense — to make a fuss over matt^rm r/f 
that sort. 



218 'TWIXT LAISD AND SEA 

As has been said already, Heemskirk turned up some 
time after Jasper's arrival at Nelson's Cove. The 
sight of the brig lying right under the bungalow was 
very offensive to him. He did not fly ashore before 
his anchor touched the ground as Jasper used to do. 
On the contrary, he hung about his quarter-deck 
mumbling to himself; and when he ordered his boat 
to be manned it was in an angry voice. Freya's ex- 
istence, which lifted Jasper out of himself into a bliss- 
ful elation, was for Heemskirk a cause of secret 
torment, of hours of exasperated brooding. 

While passing the brig he hailed her harshly and 
asked if the master was on board. Schultz, smart and 
neat in a spotless white suit, leaned over the taff- 
rail, finding the question somewhat amusing. He 
looked humorously down into Heemskirk's boat, and 
answered, in the most amiable modulations of his 
beautiful voice : " Captain Allen is up at the house, 
sir.'' But his expression changed suddenly at the 
savage growl : " What the devil are you grinning 
at?" which acknowledged that information. 

He watched Heemskirk land and, instead of going 
to the house, stride away by another path into the 
grounds. 

The desire-tormented Dutchman found old Kelson 
(or Nielsen) at his drying-sheds, very busy super- 
intending the manipulation of his tobacco crop, which, 
though small, was of excellent quality, and enjoying 
himself thoroughly. But Heemskirk soon put a stop 
to this simple happiness. He sat down by the old 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 219 

chap, and by the sort of talk which he knew was best 
calculated for the purpose, reduced him before long to 
a state of concealed and perspiring nervousness. It 
was a horrid talk of " authorities/' and old Nelson 
tried to defend himself. If he dealt with English 
traders it was because he had to dispose of his produce 
somehow. He was as conciliatory as he knew how to 
be, and this very thing seemed to excite Heemskirk, 
who had worked himself up into a heavily breathing 
state of passion. 

"And the worst of them all is that Allen," he 
growled. "Tour particular friend — eh? You have 
let in a lot of these Englishmen into this part. You 
ought never to have been allowed to settle here. 
Never. What's he doing here now ? " 

Old Nelson (or Nielsen), becoming very agitated, 
declared that Jasper Allen was no particular friend 
of his. No friend at all — at all. He had bought 
three tons of rice from him to feed his workpeople on. 
What sort of evidence of friendship was that ? Heems- 
kirk burst out at last with the thought that had been 
gnawing at his vitals: 

" Yes. Sell three tons of rice and flirt three days 
with that girl of yours. I am speaking to you as a 
friend, Nielsen. This won't do. You are only on suf- 
ferance here." 

Old Nelson was taken aback at first, but recovered 
pretty quickly. Won't do I Certainly ! Of course, it 
wouldn't do! The last man in the world. But his 
girl didn't care for the fellow, and was too sensible to 



220 'TWIXT LAND AKD SEA 

fall in love with any one. He was very earnest in im- ' 
pressing on Heemskirk his own feeling of absolute 
security. And the lieutenant, casting doubting glances 
sideways, was yet willing to believe hinu - 

" Much you know about it," he grunted nevertheless. 

"But I do know," insisted old Nelson, with the i 
greater desperation because he wanted to resist the 
doubts arising in his own mind. " My own daughter ! 

I 

In my own house, and I not to know! Come! It 
would be a good joke, lieutenant" j 

" They seem to be carrying on considerably," re- \ 
marked Heemskirk moodily. " I suppose they are 
together now," he added, feeling a pang which changed 
what he meant for a mocking smile into a strange 
grimace. 

The harassed Nelson shook his hand at him. He 
was at bottom shocked at this insistence, and was even I 
beginning to feel annoyed at the absurdity of it. \ 

" Pooh I Pooh ! I'll tell you what, lieutenant : you 
go to the house and have a drop of gin-and-bitters , 
before dinner. Ask for Freya. I must see the last ; 
of this tobacco put away for the night, but I'll be 
along presently." { 

Heemskirk was not insensible to this su^estion. It 
answered to his secret longing, which was not a longing 
for drink, however. Old Nelson shouted solicitously 
after his broad back a recommendation to make himself 
comfortable, and that there was a box of cheroots on j 
the verandah. i 

It was the west verandah that old Nelson meant, I 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLE& 221 

the one which was the living-room of the house, and 
had split-rattan screens of the very finest quality. The 
east verandah, sacred to his own privacy, pufiBng out 
of cheeks, and other signs of perplexed thinking, was 
fitted with stout blinds of sailcloth. The north 
verandah was not a verandah at all, really. It was 
more like a long balcony. It did not communicate 
with the other two, and could only be approached by 
a passage inside the house. Thus it had a privacy 
which made it a convenient place for a maiden's 
meditations without words, and also for the discourses, 
apparently without sense, which, passing between a 
young man and a maid, become pregnant with a 
diversity of transcendental meanings. 

This north verandah was embowered with climbing 
plants. Freya, whose room opened out on it, had 
furnished it as a sort of boudoir for herself, with a 
few cane chairs and a sofa of the same kind. On this 
sofa she and Jasper sat as close together as is possible^ 
in this imperfect world where neither can a body be 
in two places at once nor yet two bodies can be in one 
place at the same time. They had been sitting 
together all the afternoon, and I won't say that their 
talk had been without sense. Loving him with a little 
judicious anxiety lest in his elation he should break 
his heart over some mishap, Freya naturally would 
talk to him soberly. He, nervous and brusque when 
away from her, appeared always as if overcome by her 
visibility, by the great wonder of being palpably loved. 
An old man's child, having lost his mother early, 



222 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 1 

1 
thrown out to sea out of the way while very young, j 

he*had not much experience of tenderness of any kind 

In this private, foliage-embowered verandah, and at ' 
this late hour of the afternoon, he bent down a little, I 
and, possessing himself of Freya's hands, was kissing « 
them one after another, while she smiled and looked 
down at his head with the eyes of approving compas- 
sion. At that same moment Heemskirk was approach- 
ing the house from the north. 

Antonia was on the watch on that side. But she 
did not keep a very good watch. The sun was setting; I 
she knew that her young mistress and the captain of 
the Bonito were about to separate. She was walking 
to and fro in the dusky grove with a flower in her hair, 
and singing softly to herself, when suddenly, within a 
foot of her, the lieutenant appeared from behind a tree. 
She bounded aside like a startled fawn, but Heems- 
kirk, with a lucid comprehension of what she was there ( 
for, pounced upon her, and, catching her arm, clapped 
his other thick hand over her mouth. 

" If you try to make a noise I'll twist your neck ! " 
This ferocious figure of speech terrified the girl 
sufficiently. Heemskirk had seen plainly enough on 
the verandah Freya's golden head with another head 
very close to it. He dragged the unresisting maid with 
him by a circuitous way into the compound, where he 
dismissed her with a vicious push in the direction of i 
the cluster of bamboo huts for the servants. , 

She was very much like the faithful camerista of \ 
Italian comedy, but in her terror she bolted away | 

! 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 223 

without a sound from that thick, short, black-eyed 
man with a cruel grip of fingers like a vice. Quaking 
all over at a distance, extremely scared and half in- 
clined to laugh, she saw him enter the house at the 
back. 

The interior of the bungalow was divided by two 
passages crossing each other in the middle. At that 
point Heemskirk, by turning his head slightly to the 
left as he passed, secured the evidence of " carrying 
on'' so irreconcilable with old Nelson's assurances 
that it made him stagger, with a rush of blood to his 
head. Two white figures, distinct against the light, 
stood in an unmistakable attitude. Freya's arms were 
round Jasper's neck. Their faces were characteristic- 
ally superimposed on each other, and Heemskirk went 
on, his throat choked with a sudden rising of curses, till 
on the west verandah he stumbled blindly against a 
chair and then dropped into another as though his legs 
had been swept from under him. He had indulged too 
long in the habit of appropriating Ereya to himself in 
his thoughts. " Is that how you entertain your visitors 
— you . . ." he thought, so outraged that he could not 
find a sufficiently degrading epithet. 

Ereya struggled a little and threw her head back. 

" Somebody has come in," she whispered. Jasper, 
holding her clasped closely to his breast, and looking 
down into her face, suggested casually: 

" Your father." 

Ereya tried to disengage herself, but she had not the 
heart absolutely to push him away with her hands. 



224 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" I believe it's Heemskirk," she breathed out at him. 

He, plunging into her eyes in a quiet rapture, was 
provoked to a vague smile by the sound of the name. 

" The ass is always knocking down my beacons out- 
side the river,*' he murmured. He attached no other 
meaning to Heemskirk's existence; but Freya was ask- 
ing herself whether the lieutenant had seen them. 

" Let me go, kid," she ordered in a peremptory whis- 
per. Jasper obeyed, and, stepping back at once, con- 
tinued his contemplation of her face under another 
angle. " I must go and see,'' she said to herself 
anxiously. 

She instructed him hurriedly to wait a moment after 
she was gone and then to slip on to the back verandah 
and get a quiet smoke before he showed himself. 

" Don't stay late this evening," was her last recom- 
mendation before she left him. 

Then Freya came out on the west verandah with her 
light, rapid step. While going through the doorway 
she managed to shake down the folds of the looped-up 
curtains at the end of the passage so as to cover Jasper's 
retreat from the bower. Directly she appeared Heems- 
kirk jumped up as if to fly at her. She paused and he 
made her an exaggerated low bow. 

It irritated Freya. 

" Oh ! It's you, Mr. Heemskirk. How do you 
do?" 

. She spoke in her usual tone. Her face was not 
plainly visible to him in the dusk of the deep verandah. 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 225 

He dared not trust himself to speak, his rage at what 
he had seen was so great. And when she added with 
serenity : " Papa will be coming in before long," he 
called her horrid names silently, to himself, before he 
spoke with contorted lips. 

" I have seen your father already. We had a talk 
in the sheds. He told me some very interesting 
things. Oh, very ^^ 

Freya sat down. She thought: "He has seen us, 
for certain." She was not ashamed. What she was 
afraid of was some foolish or awkward complication. 
But she could not conceive how much her person had 
been appropriated by Heemskirk (in his thoughts). 
She tried to be conversational. 

" You are coming now from Palembang, I sup- 
pose ? " 

" Eh ? What ? Oh, yes I I come from Palembang. 
Ha, ha, ha I You know what your father said? He 
said he was afraid you were having a very dull time 
of it here." 

"And I suppose you are going to cruise in the 
Moluccas," continued Freya, who wanted to impart 
some useful information to Jasper if possible. At the 
same time she was always glad to know that those two 
men were a few hundred miles apart when not under 
her eye. 

Heemskirk growled angrily. 

" Yes. Moluccas," glaring in the direction of her 
shadowy figure. "Your father thinks it's very quiet 



226 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

for you here. I tell you what, Miss Freya. There 
isn't such a quiet spot on earth that a woman can't 
find an opportunity o£ making a fool of somebody/' 

Freya thought : " I mustn't let him provoke me." 
Presently the Tamil boy, who was Nelson's head 
servant, came in with the lights. She addressed him 
at once with voluble directions where to put the lamps, 
told him to bring the tray with the gin and bitters, 
and to send Antonia into the house. 

" I will have to leave you to yourself, Mr. Heems- 
kirk, for a while," she said. 

And she went to her room to put on another frock. 
She made a quick change of it because she wished to 
be on the verandah before her father and the lieuten- 
ant met again. She relied on herself to regulate that 
evening's intercourse between these two. But Antonia, 
still scared and hysterical, exhibited a bruise on her 
arm which roused Freya's indignation. 

" He jumped on me out of the bush like a tiger," said 
the girl, laughing nervously with frightened eyes. 

" The brute ! " thought Freya. " He meant to spy 
on us, then." She was enraged, but the recollection 
of the thick Dutchman in white trousers wide at the 
hips and narrow at the ankles, with his shoulder-straps 
and black bullet head, glaring at her in the light of 
the lamps, was so repulsively comical that she could 
not help a smiling grimace. Then she became anxious. 
The absurdities of three men were forcing this anxiety 
upon her: Jasper's impetuosity, her father's fears, 
Heemskirk's infatuation. She was very tender to the 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 22Y 

first two, and she made up her mind to display all her 
feminine diplomacy. All this, she said to herself, will 
be over and done with before very long now. 

Heemskirk on the verandah, lolling in a chair, his 
legs extended and his white cap reposing on his stomach, 
was lashing himself into a fury of an atrocious char- 
acter altogether incomprehensible to a girl like Ereya. 
His chin was resting on his chest, his eyes gazed stonily 
at his shoes. Freya examined him from behind the 
curtain. He didn't stir. He was ridiculous. But 
this absolute stillness was impressive. She stole back 
along the passage to the east verandah, where Jasper 
was sitting quietly in the dark, doing what he was told, 
like a good boy. 

"Psst/' she hissed. He was by her side in a mo- 
ment. 

" Yes. What is it ? " he murmured. 

" It's that beetle," she whispered uneasily. Under 
the impression of Heemskirk's sinister immobility she 
had half a mind to let Jasper know that they had been 
seen. But she was by no means certain that Heems- 
kirk would tell her father — and at any rate not that 
evening. She concluded rapidly that the safest thing 
would be to get Jasper out of the way as soon as pos- 
sible. 

'* What has he been doing ? '' asked Jasper in a calm 
undertone. 

" Oh, nothing ! Nothing. He sits there looking 
cross. But you know how he's always worrying 
papa." 



228 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

"Tour father^s quite unreasonable,'* pronounced 
Jasper judicially. 

" I don't know," she said in a doubtful tone. Some- 
thing o£ old Nelson's dread of the authorities had 
rubbed off on the girl since she had to live with it day 
after day. " I don't know. Papa's afraid of being 
reduced to beggary, as he says, in his old days. Look 
here, kid, you had better clear out to-morrow, first 
thing." 

Jasper had hoped for another afternoon with Freya, 
an afternoon of quiet felicity with the girl by his side 
and his eyes on his brig, anticipating a blissful future. 
His silence was eloquent with disappointment, and 
Freya understood it very well. She, too, was disap- 
pointed. But it was her business to be sensible. 

"We shan't have a moment to ourselves with that 
beetle creeping round the house," she argued in a low, 
hurried voice. " So what's the good of your staying? 
And he won't go while the brig's here. You know he 
won't." 

" He ought to be reported for loitering," murmured 
Jasper with a vexed little laugh. 

" Mind you get under way at daylight," recom- 
mended Freya under her breath. 

He detained her after the manner of lovers. She 
expostulated without struggling because it was hard 
for her to repulse him. He whispered into her eai 
while he put his arms round her. 

" Next time we two meet, next time I hold you like 
this, it shall be on board. You and I, in the brig — 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 229 

all the world, all the life ^" And then he flashed 

out : ^' I wonder I can wait I I feel as if I must carry 
you off now, at once. I could run with you in my 
hands — down the path — without stumbling — with- 
out touching the earth ^* 

She was still. She listened to the passion in his 
voice. She was saying to herself that if she were to 
whisper the faintest yes, if she were but to sigh lightly 
her consent, he would do it. He was capable of doing 
it — without touching the earth. She closed her eyes 
and smiled in the dark, abandoning herself in a delight- 
ful giddiness, for an instant, to his encircling arm. 
But before he could be tempted to tighten his grasp 
she was out of it, a foot away from him and in full pos- 
session of herself. 

That was the steady Freya. She was touched by 
the deep sigh which floated up to her from the white 
figure of Jasper, who did not stir. 

" You are a mad kid," she said tremulously. Then 
with a change of tone : " No one could carry me off. 
Not even you. I am not the sort of girl that gets 
carried off." His white form seemed to shrink a little 
before the force of that assertion and she relented. 
" IsnH it enough for you to know that you have — that 
you have carried me away ? " she added in a tender 
tone. 

He murmured an endearing word, and she con- 
tinued : 

" I've promised you — I've said I would come — 
and I shall come of my own free will. You shall wait 



280 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

for me on board. I shall get up the side — by myseH, 
and walk up to you on the deck and say : * Here I am, 
kid.' And then — and then I shall be carried ofF. 
But it will be no man who will carry me oflF — it 
will be the brig, your brig — our brig. ... I love the 
beauty ! *' 

She heard an inarticulate sound, something like a 
moan wrung out by pain or delight, and glided away. 
There was that other man on the other verandah, that 
dark, surly Dutchman who could make trouble between 
Jasper and her father, bring about a quarrel, ugly 
words, and perhaps a physical collision. What a hor- 
rible situation! But, even putting aside that awful 
extremity, she shrank from having to live for some 
three months with a wretched, tormented, angry, dis- 
tracted, absurd man. And when the day came, the 
day and the hour, what should she do if her father 
tried to detain her by main force — as was, after all, 
possible? Could she actually struggle with him hand 
to hand? But it was of lamentations and entreaties 
that she was really afraid. Could she withstand them ? 
What an odious, cruel, ridiculous position would that 
bel 

" But it won't be. He'll say nothing,'' she thought 
as she came out quickly on the west verandah, and, 
seeing that Heemskirk did not move, sat down on a 
chair near the doorway and kept her eyes on him. The 
outraged lieutenant had not changed his attitude; only 
his cap had fallen off his stomach and was lying on the 
floor. His thick black eyebrows were knitted by a 



FRETA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 231 

frown, while he looked at her out of the comers of his 
eyes. And their sideways glance in conjunction with 
the hooked nose, the whole bulky, ungainly, sprawling 
person, struck Ereya as so comically moody that, in- 
wardly discomposed as she was, she could not help 
smiling. She did her best to give that smile a concil- 
iatory character. She did not want to provoke Heems- 
kirk needlessly. 

And the lieutenant, perceiving that smile, was 
mollified. It never entered his head that his outward 
appearance, a naval officer, in uniform, could appear 
ridiculous to that girl of no position — the daughter of 
old Nielsen. The recollection of her arms round 
Jasper's neck still irritated and excited him. " The 
hussy ! *' he thought. " Smiling — eh ? That's how 
you are amusing yourself. Fooling your father finely, 
aren't you ? You have a taste for that sort of fun — 

have you ? Well, we shall see " He did not alter 

his position, but on his pursed-up lips there also ap- 
peared a smile of surly and ill-omened amusement, 
while his eyes returned to the contemplation of his 
boots. 

Freya felt hot with indignation. She sat radiantly 
fair in the lamplight, her strong, well-shaped hands 
lying one on top of the other in her lap. ..." Odious 
creature," she thought. Her face coloured with sud- 
den anger. "You have scared my maid out of her 
senses," she said aloud. " What possessed you ? " 

He was thinking so deeply of her that the sound of 
her voice, pronouncing these unexpected words, startled 



232 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 



I 

{ 



1 



him extremely. He jerked up his head and looked so 
bewildered that Freya insisted impatiently: 

" I mean Antonia. You have bruised her arm. ! 
What did you do it for V I 

" Do you want to quarrel with me ? " he asked | 
thickly, with a sort of amazement. He blinked like 
an owl. He was funny. Freya, like all women, had 
a keen sense of the ridiculous in outward appearance. 

" Well, no ; I don't think I do." She could not help 
herself. She laughed outright, a clear, nervous laugh 
in which Heemskirk joined suddenly with a harsh " Ha, 
ha, ha ! " 

Voices and footsteps were heard in the passage, and 
Jasper, with old Nelson, came out. Old Nelson looked 
at his daughter approvingly, for he liked the lieutenant 
to be kept in good humour. And he also joined 
sympathetically in the laugh. "Now, lieutenant, we 
shall have some dinner," he said, rubbing his hands 
cheerily. Jasper had gone straight to the balustrade. 
The sky was full of stars, and in the blue velvety night 
the cove below had a denser blackness, in which the 
riding-lights of the brig and of the gunboat glimmered 
redly, like suspended sparks. " Next time this riding- 
light glimmers down there, I'll be waiting for her on the 
quarter-deck to come and say ^ Here I am,' " Jasper 
thought; and his heart seemed to grow bigger in his 
chest, dilated by an oppressive happiness that nearly 
wrung out a cry from him. There was no wind. Not 
a leaf below him stirred, and even the sea was but a 
still uncomplaining shadow. Far away on the un- 



FEETA OF THE SEVE:S' ISLES 233 

clouded sky the pale lightning, the heat-lightning of 
the tropics, played tremulously amongst the low stars 
in short, faint, mysteriously consecutive flashes, like 
incomprehensible signals from some distant planet. 

The dinner passed off quietly. Freya sat facing her 
father, calm but pale. Heemskirk affected to talk only 
to old Nelson. Jasper's behaviour was exemplary. 
He kept his eyes under control, basking in the sense 
of Ereya's nearness, as people bask in the sun without 
looking up to heaven. And very soon after dinner was 
over, mindful of his instructions, he declared that it 
was time for him to go on board his ship. 

Heemskirk did not look up. Ensconced in the 
rocking-chair, and puffing at a cheroot, he had the air 
of meditating surlily over aome odious outbreak. So 
at least it seemed to Freya. Old Nelson said at once: 
" I'll stroll down with you." He had begun a pro- 
fessional conversation about the dangers of the New 
Guinea coast, and wanted to relate to Jasper some ex- 
perience of his own " over there." Jasper was such a 
good listener! Freya made as if to accompany them, 
but her father frowned, shook his head, and nodded 
significantly towards the immovable Heemskirk blow- 
ing out smoke with half -closed eyes and protruded lips. 
The lieutenant must not be left alone. Take offence, 
perhaps. 

Freya obeyed these signs. ^Terhaps it is better for 
me to stay," she thought. Women are not generally 
prone to review their own conduct, still less to condemn 
it. The embarrassing masculine absurdities are in the 



234 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

main responsible for its ethics. But, looking at Heems- 
kirk, Freya felt regret and even remorse. His thick 
bulk in repose suggested the idea of repletion, but as 
a matter of fact he had eaten very little. He had 
drunk a great deal, however. The fleshy lobes of his 
unpleasant big ears with deeply folded rims were 
crimson. They quite flamed in the neighbourhood of 
the flat, sallow cheeks. For a considerable time he 
did not raise his heavy brown eyelids. To be at the 
mercy of such a creature was humiliating; and Freya, 
who always ended by being frank with herself, thought 
regretfully : " If only I had been open with papa from 
the first! But then what an impossible life he would 
have led me ! " Yes. Men were absurd in many 
ways; lovably like Jasper, impracticably like her 
father, odiously like that grotesquely supine creature 
in the chair. Was it possible to talk him over? 
Perhaps it was not necessary ? " Oh ! I can^t talk to 
him," she thought. And when Heemskirk, still with- 
out looking at her, began resolutely to crush his half- 
smoked cheroot on the coffee-tray, she took alarm, 
glided towards the * piano, opened it in tremendous 
haste, and struck the keys before she sat down. 

In an instant the verandah, the whole carpetless 
wooden bungalow raised on piles, became filled with 
an uproarious, confused resonance. But through it all 
she heard, she felt on the floor the heavy, prowling 
footsteps of the lieutenant moving to and fro at her 
back. He was not exactly drunk, but he was suffi- 
ciently primed to make the suggestions of his excited 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 235 

imagmation seem perfectly feasible and even clever; 
beautifully, unscrupulously clever. Ereya, aware that 
he had stopped just behind her, went on playing with- 
out turning her head. She played with spirit, bril- 
liantly, a j&erce piece of music, but when his voice 
reached her she went cold all over. It was the voice, 
not the words. The insolent familiarity of tone dis- 
mayed her to such an extent that she could not under- 
stand at first what he was saying. His utterance was 
thick, too. 

• '^ I suspected. ... Of course I suspected something 
of your little goings on. I am not a child. But 
from suspecting to seeing — seeing, you understand — 
there's an enormous difference. That sort of thing. 
. • . Come! One isn't made of stone. And when a 
man has been worried by a girl as I have been worried 
by you. Miss Ereya — sleeping and waking, then, of 
course. . . . But I am a man of the world. It must 
be dull for you here ... I say, won't you leave off 
this confounded playing . . . ? " 

This last was the only sentence really which she 
made out. She shook her head negatively, and in 
desperation put on the loud pedal, but she could not 
make the sound of the piano cover his raised voice. 

" Only, I am surprised that you should. . . . An 
English trading skipper, a common fellow. Low, 
cheeky lot, infesting these islands. I would make 
short work of such trash ! While you have here a good 
friend, a gentleman ready to worship at your feet — 
your pretty feet — an officer, a man of family. 



236 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

Strange, isn't it ? But what of that ! You are fit for 
a prince." 

'Freya did not turn her head. Her face went stiflf 
with horror and indignation. This adventure was al- 
together beyond her conception of what was possible. 
It was not in her character to jump up and run away. 
It seemed to her, too, that if she did move there was 
no saying what might happen. Presently her father 
would be back, and then the other would have to leave 
off. It was best to ignore — to ignore. She went on 
playing loudly and correctly, as though she were alone, 
as if Heemskirk did not exist. That proceeding irri- 
tated him. 

" Come ! You may deceive your father," he bawled 
angrily, " but I am not to be made a fool of ! Stop 
this infernal noise . . . Freya . . . Hey! You Scan- 
dinavian Goddess of Love! Stop! Do you hear? 
That's what you are — of love. But the heathen gods 
are only devils in disguise, and that's what you are, 
too — a deep little devil. Stop it, I say, or I will lift 
you off that stool ! " 

Standing behind her, he devoured her with his 
eyes, from the golden crown of her rigidly motionless 
head to the heels of her shoes, the line of her shapely 
shoulders, the curves of her fine figure swaying a little 
before the keyboard. She had on a light dress; the 
sleeves stopped short at the elbows in an edging of 
lace. A satin ribbon encircled her waist. In an access 
of irresistible, reckless hopefulness he clapped both his 
hands on that waist — and then the irritating music 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 237 

stopped at last. But, quick as she was in springing 
away from the contact (the round music-stool going 
over with a crash), Heemskirk's lips, aiming at her 
neck, landed a hungry, smacking kiss just under her 
ear. A deep silence reigned for a time. And then he 
laughed rather feebly. 

He was disconcerted somewhat by her white, still 
face, the big light violet eyes resting on him stonily. 
She had not uttered a sound. She faced him, steady- 
ing herself on the comer of the piano with one ex- 
tended hand. The other went on rubbing with me- 
chanical persistency the place his lips had touched. 

"What's the trouble?" he said, offended. "Star- 
tled you? Look here: don't let us have any of that 
nonsense. You don't mean to say a kiss frightens you 
so much as all that. ... I know better. ... I don't 
mean to be left out in the cold." 

He had been gazing into her face with such strained 
intentness that he could no longer see it distinctly. 
Everything round him was rather misty. He forgot 
the overturned stool, caught his foot against it, and 
lurched forward slightly, saying in an ingratiating tone: 

" I'm not bad fun, really. You try a few kisses to 
begin with '' 

He said no more, because his head received a terrific 
concussion, accompanied by an explosive sound. Freya 
had swung her round, strong arm with such force that 
the impact of her open palm on his flat cheek turned 
him half round. Uttering a faint, hoarse yell, the 
lieutenant clapped both his hands to the left side of 



'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 



his face, which had taken on suddenly a dusky brick-red 
tinge. Trey a, very erect, her violet eyes darkened, 
her palm still tingling from the blow, a sort of restrained 
determined smile showing a tiny gleam of her white 
teeth, heard her father's rapid, heavy tread on the 
path below the verandah. Her expression lost its 
pugnacity and became sincerely concerned. She was 
sorry for her father. She stooped quickly to pick up 
the music-stool, as if anxious to obliterate the traces. 
. . . But that was no good. She had resumed her 
attitude, one hand resting lightly on the piano, before 
old Nelson got up to the top of the stairs. 

Poor father! How furious he will be — how upset! 
And afterwards, what tremors, what unbappioess! 
Why had she not been open with him from the first? 
His round, innocent atare of amazement cut her to the 
quick. But he was not looking at her. His stare was 
directed to Heemskirk, who, with his back to him and 
with his hands still up to his face, was hissing curses 
through his teeth, and (she saw him in profile) glaring 
at her halefully with one black, evil eye. 

" What's the matter ? " asked old Nelson, very muck 
bewildered. 

She did not answer him. She thought of Jasper on 
the deck of the brig, gazing up at the lighted bungalow- 
and she felt frightened. It was a mercy that one of 
them at least was on board out of the way. She only 
wished he were a hundred miles off. And yet she was 
not certain that she did. Had Jasper been mysteri- 



d I 



FRETA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 239 

ously moved that moment to reappear on the verandah 
she would have thrown her consistency, her firmness, her 
self-possession, to the winds, and flown into his arms. 

" What is it ? What is it ? " insisted the unsuspect- 
ing Nelson, getting quite excited. " Only this minute 
you were playing a tune, and ^^ 

Freya, unable to speak in her apprehension of what 
was coming (she was also fascinated by that black, 
evil, glaring eye), only nodded slightly at the lieuten- 
ant, as much as to say : " Just look at him ! " 

" Why, yes ! '' exclaimed old Nelson. " I see. Wh^t 
on earth ^^ 

Meantime he had cautiously approached Heemskirk, 
who, bursting into incoherent imprecations, was stamp- 
ing with both feet where he stood. The indignity of 
the blow, the rage of baffled purpose, the ridicule of 
the exposure, and the impossibility of revenge mad- 
dened him to a point when he simply felt he must 
howl with fury. 

" Oh, oh, oh ! '' he howled, stamping across the 
verandah as though he meant to drive his foot through 
the floor at every step. 

" Why, is his face hurt ? " asked the astounded old 
Nelson. The truth dawned suddenly upon his inno- 
cent mind. " Dear me ! '' he cried, enlightened. 
" Get some brandy, quick, Ereya. . . . You are sub- 
ject to it, lieutenant? Fiendish, eh? I know, 1 
know! Used to go crazy all of a sudden myself in 
the time. . . . And the little bottle of laudanum from 



240 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

the medicine-chest, too, Freya. Look sharp. . . . 
Don't you see he's got a toothache ? " 

And, indeed, what other explanation could have 
presented itself to the guileless old Nelson, beholding 
this cheek nursed with both hands, these wild glances, 
these stampings, this distracted swaying of the body? 
It would have demanded a preternatural acuteness to 
hit upon the true cause. Freya had not moved. She 
watched Heemskirk's savagely inquiring, black stare 
directed stealthily upon herself. " Aha, you would 
like to be let off ! '' she said to herself. She looked at 
him unflinchingly, thinking it out. The temptation 
of making an end of it all without further trouble was 
irresistible. She gave an almost imperceptible nod of 
assent, and glided away. 

" Hurry up that brandy I '' old Nelson shouted, as 
she disappeared in the passage. 

Heemskirk relieved his deeper feelings by a sudden 
string of curses in Dutch and English which he sent 
after her. He raved to his heart's content, flinging 
to and fro the verandah and kicking chairs out of his 
way; while Nelson (or Nielsen), whose sympathy was 
profoundly stirred by these evidences of agonising 
pain, hovered round his dear (and dreaded) lieutenant, 
fussing like an old hen. 

" Dear me, dear me ! Is it so bad ? I know well 
what it is. I used to frighten my poor wife sometimes. 
Do you get it often like this, lieutenant ? '^ 

Heemskirk shouldered him viciously out of his way, 
with a short, insane laugh. But his staggering host 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 241 

took it in good part; a man beside himself with ex- 
cruciating toothache is not responsible. 

" Go into my room, lieutenant," he suggested 
urgently. " Throw yourself on my bed. We will get 
something to ease you in a minute." 

He seized the poor sufferer by the arm and forced 
him gently onwards to the very bed, on which Heems- 
kirk, in a renewed access of rage, flung himself down 
with such force that he rebounded from the mattress 
to the height of quite a foot. 

" Dear me ! " exclaimed the scared Nelson, and in- 
continently ran off to hurry up the brandy and the 
laudanum, very angry that so little alacrity was shown 
in relieving the tortures of his precious guest. In the 
end he got these things himself. 

Half an hour later he stood in the inner passage of 
the house, surprised by faint, spasmodic sounds of a 
mysterious nature, between laughter and sobs. He 
frowned; then went straight towards his daughter's 
room and knocked at the door. 

Freya, her glorious fair hair framing her white face 
and rippling down a dark-blue dressing-gown, opened 
it partly. 

The light in the room was dim. Antonia, crouching 
in a comer, rocked herself backwards and forwards, 
uttering feeble moans. Old Nelson had not much ex- 
perience in various kinds of feminine laughter, but he 
was certain there had been laughter there. 

" Very unfeeling, very unfeeling ! " he said, with 
weighty displeasure. " What is there so amusing* m 



242 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

a man being in pain ? I should have thought a woman 

— a young girl ^^ 

" He was so funny," murmured Freya, whose eyes 
glistened strangely in the semi-obscurity of the passage. 
"And then, you know, I don't like him," she added, 
in an unsteady voice. 

" Funny ! " repeated old Nelson, amazed at this 
evidence of callousness in one so young. *^ You donH 
like him ! Do you mean to say that, because you don't 

like him, you Why, it's simply cruel ! Don't 

you know it's about the worst sort of pain there is? 
Dogs have been known to go mad with it." 

" He certainly seemed to have gone mad," Freya 
said with an effort, as if she were struggling with some 
hidden feeling. 

But her father was launched. 

" And you know how he is. He notices everything. 
He is a fellow to take offence for the least little thing 

— regular Dutchman — and I want to keep friendly 
with him. It's like this, my girl: if that rajah of ours 
were to do something silly — and you know he is a 
sulky, rebellious beggar — and the authorities took into 
their heads that my influence over him wasn't good, 
you would find yourself without a roof over your 
head " 

She cried : " What nonsense, father ! " in a not very 
assured tone, and discovered that he was angry, angry 
enough to achieve irony; yes, old Nelson (or Nielsen), 
irony! Just a gleam of it. 

" Oh, of course, if you have means of your own — a 



1 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 243 

mansion, a plantation that I know nothing of '^ 

But he was not capable of sustained irony. " I tell 
you they would bundle me out of here," he whispered 
forcibly; "without compensation, of course. I know 
these Dutch. And the lieutenant's just the fellow to 
start the trouble going. He has the ear of influential 
officials. I wouldn't offend him for anything — for 
anything — on no consideration whatever. . . . What 
did you say ? " 

It was only an inarticulate exclamation. If she ever 
had a half-formed intention of telling him everything she 
had given it up now. It was impossible, both out of re- 
gard for his dignity and for the peace of his poor mind. 

" I don't care for him myself very much," old Nel- 
son's subdued undertone confessed in a sigh. " He's 
easier now," he went on, after a silence. " I've given 
him up my bed for the night. I shall sleep on my 
verandah, in the hammock. No ; I can't say I like him 
either, but from that to laugh at a man because he's 
driven crazy with pain is a long way. You've sur- 
prised me, Ereya. That side of his face is quite 
flushed." 

Her shoulders shook convulsively under his hands, 
which he laid on her paternally. His straggly, wiry 
moustache brushed her forehead in a good-night kiss. 
She closed the door, and went away from it to the 
middle of the room before she allowed herself a tired- 
out sort of laugh, without buoyancy. 

" Flushed I A little flushed I " she repeated to her- 
self. " I hope so, indeed ! A little " 



244 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

Her eyelashes were wet. Antonia, in her comer, 
moaned and giggled, and it was impossible to tell where 
the moans ended and the giggles began. 

The mistress and the maid had been somewhat 
hysterical, for Freya, on fleeing into her room, had 
found Antonia there, and had told her everything. 

" I have avenged you, my girl," she exclaimed. 

And then they had laughingly cried and cryingly 
laughed with admonitions — " Ssh, not so loud ! Be 
quiet ! " on one part, and interludes of " I am so 
frightened. . . . He's an evil man," on the other. 

Antonia was very much afraid of Heemskirk. She 
was afraid of him because of his personal appearance: 
because of his eyes and his eyebrows, and his mouth 
and his nose and his limbs. Nothing could be more 
rational. And she thought him an evil man, because, 
to her eyes, he looked evil. No ground for an opinion 
could be sounder. In the dimness of the room, with 
only a nightlight burning at the head of Freya's bed, 
the camerista crept out of her corner to crouch at the 
feet of her mistress, supplicating in whispers: 

" There's the brig. Captain Allen. Let us run 
away at once — oh, let us run away ! I am so fright- 
ened. Let us ! Let us ! " 

" I ! Eun away ! " thought Freya to herself, with- 
out looking down at the scared girl. " Never." 

Both the resolute mistress under the mosquito-net 
and the frightened maid lying curled up on a mat at 
the foot of the bed did not sleep very well that night. 
The person that did not sleep at all was Lieutenant 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 245 

Heemskirk. He lay on his back staring vindictively 
in the darkness. Inflaming images and humiliating 
reflections succeeded each other in his mind, keeping 
up, augmenting his anger. A pretty tale this to get 
about ! But it must not be allowed to get about. The 
outrage had to be swallowed in silence. A pretty af- 
fair ! Fooled, led on, and struck by the girl — and 
probably fooled by the father, too. But no. Nielsen 
was but another victim of that shameless hussy, that 
brazen minx, that sly, laughing, kissing, lying . . . 

" No ; he did not deceive me on purpose," thought 
the tormented lieutenant. " But I should like to pay 
him off, all the same, for being such an imbecile " 

Well, some day, perhaps. One thing he was firmly 
resolved on : he had made up his mind to steal early out 
of the house. He did not think he could face the girl 
without going out of his mind with fury. 

" Fire and predition ! Ten thousand devils ! I 
shall choke here before the morning ! " he muttered 
to himself, lying rigid on his back on old Nelson's bed, 
his breast heaving for air. 

He arose at daylight and started cautiously to 
open the door. Faint sounds in the passage alarmed 
bim, and remaining concealed he saw Freya coming 
out. This unexpected sight deprived him of all power 
to move away from the crack of the door. It was 
the narrowest crack possible, but commanding the view 
of the end of the verandah. Freya made for that end 
hastily to watch the brig passing the point. She wore 
ber dark dressing-gown; her feet were bare, because 



246 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

having fallen asleep towards the morning, she ran out 
headlong in her fear of being too late. Heemskirk 
had never seen her looking like this, with her hair 
drawn back smoothly to the shape of her head, and 
hanging in one heavy, fair tress down her back, and 
with that air of extreme youth, intensity, and eager- 
ness. And at first he was amazed, and then he gnashed 
his teeth. He could not face her at all. He muttered 
a curse, and kept still behind the door. 

With a low, deep-breathed "Ah!" when she first 
saw the brig already under way, she reached for 
Nelson's long glass reposing on brackets high up the 
wall. The wide sleeve of the dressing-gown slipped 
back, uncovering her white arm as far as the shoulder. 
Heemskirk gripping the door-Tiandle, as if to crush it, 
felt like a man just risen to his feet from a drinking 
bout. 

And Freya knew that he was watching her. She 
knew. She had seen the door move as she came out of 
the passage. She was aware of his eyes being on her, 
with scornful bitterness, with triumphant contempt. 

"You are there," she thought, levelling the long 
glass. " Oh, well, look on, then ! " 

The green islets appeared like black shadows, the 
ashen sea was smooth as glass, the clear robe of the 
colourless dawn, in which even the brig appeared 
shadowy, had a hem of light in the east. Directly 
Freya had made out Jasper on deck, with his own long 
glass directed to the bungalow, she laid hers down and 
raised both her beautiful white arms above her head. 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 247 

In that attitude of supreme cry she stood still, glowing 
with the consciousness of Jasper's adoration going out 
to her figure held in the field of his glass away there, 
and warmed, too, by the feeling of evil passion, the 
burning, covetous eyes of the other, fastened 9n her 
back. In the fervour of her love, in the caprice of her 
mind, and with that mysterious knowledge of masculine 
nature women seem to be bom to, she thought: 

" You are looking on — you will — you must ! 
Then you shall see something." 

She brought both her hands to her lips, then flung 
them out, sending a kiss over the sea, as if she wanted 
to throw her heart along with it on the deck of the brig. 
Her face was rosy, her eyes shone. Her repeated, pas- 
sionate gesture seemed to fling kisses by the hundred 
again and again and again, while the slowly ascending 
sun brought the glory of colour to the world, turning 
the islets green, the sea blue, the brig below her white 
— dazzlingly white in the spread of her wings — with 
the red ensign streaming like a tiny flame from the 
peak. And each time she murmured with a rising in- 
flexion : " Take this — and this — and this " till 

suddenly her arms fell. She had seen the ensign 
dipped in response, and next moment the point below 
hid the hull of the brig from her view. Then she 
turned away from the balustrade, and, passing slowly 
before the door of her father's room with her eyelids 
lowered, and an enigmatic expression on her face, she 
disappeared behind the curtain. 

But instead of going along the passage, she remained 



248 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

concealed and very still on the other side to watch 
what would happen. For some time the broad, fur- 
nished verandah remained empty. Then the door of 
old Nelson's room came open suddenly, and Heems- 
kirk staggered out. His hair was rumpled, his eyes 
bloodshot, his unshaven face looked very dark. He 
gazed wildly about, saw his cap on a table, snatched it 
up, and made for the stairs, quietly, but with a strange, 
tottering gait, like the last effort of waning strength. 

Shortly after his head had sunk below the level of 
the floor, Freya came out from behind the curtain, 
with compressed, scheming lips, and no softness at all 
in her luminous eyes. He could not be allowed to 
sneak off scot free, n Never — never ! She was excited, 
she tingled all over, she had tasted blood! He must 
be made to understand that she had been aware of 
having been watched ; he must know that he had been 
seen slinking off shamefully. But to run to the front 
rail and shout after him would have been childish, 
crude — undignified. And to shout — what? What 
word? What phrase? No; it was impossible. Then 
how? . . . She frowned, discovered it, dashed at the 
piano, which had stood open all night, and made the 
rosewood monster growl savagely in an irritated bass. 
She struck chords as if firing shots after that straddling, 
broad figure in ample white trousers and a dark 
uniform jacket with gold shoulder-straps, and then 
she pursued him with the same thing she had played 
the evening before — a modem, fierce piece of love 
music which had been tried more than once against 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 249 

the thunderstorms of the group. She accentuated its 
rhythm with triumphant malice, so absorbed in her 
purpose that she did not notice the presence of her 
father, who, wearing an old threadbare ulster of a 
check pattern over his sleeping suit, had run out from 
the back verandah to inquire the reason of this untimely 
performance. He stared at her. 

^^ What on earth ? . . . Freya !'',.. His voice 
was nearly drowned by the piano. " What's become 
of the lieutenant ? '' he shouted. 

She looked up at him as if her soul were lost in her 
music, with unseeing eyes. 

" Gone.^' 

" Wha-a-t ? . . . Where ? '' 

She shook her head" slightly, and went on playing 
louder than before. Old Nelson's innocently anxious 
gaze starting from the open door of his room, explored 
the whole place high and low, as if the lieutenant were 
something small which might have been crawling on 
the floor or clinging to a wall. But a shrill whistle 
coming somewhere from below pierced the ample 
volume of sound rolling out of the piano in great, 
vibrating waves. The lieutenant was down at the 
cove, whistling for the boat to come and take him off 
to his ship. And he seemed to be in a terrific hurry, 
too, for he whistled again almost directly, waited for 
a moment, and then sent out a long, interminable, shrill 
call as distressful to hear as though he had shrieked 
without drawing breath. Freya ceased playing sud- 
denly. 



250 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

" Going on board," said old Nelson, perturbed by 
the event. "What could have made him clear out 
so early? Queer chap. Devilishly touchy, too! I 
shouldn't wonder if it was your conduct last night that 
hurt his feelings ? I noticed you, Freya. You as well 
as laughed in his face, while he was suffering agonies 
from neuralgia. It isn't the way to get yourself liked. 
He's offended with you." 

Freya's hands now reposed passive on the keys; 
she bowed her fair head, feeling a sudden discontent, 
a nervous lassitude, as though she had passed through 
some exhausting crisis. Old Nelson (or Nielsen), look- 
ing aggrievedj was revolving matters of policy in his 
bald head. 

" I think it would be right for me to go on board 
just to inquire, some time this morning," he declared 
fussily. " Why don't they bring me my morning tea ? 
Do you hear, Freya ? You have astonished me, I must 
say. I didn't think a young girl could be so unfeeling. 
And the lieutenant thinks himself a friend of ours, too ! 
What? No? Well, he calls himself a friend, and 
that's something to a person in my position. Cer- 
tainly! Oh, yes, I must go on board." 

" Must you ? " murmured Freya listlessly ; then 
added, in her thought : " Poor man ! " 



In respect of the next seven weeks, all that is necessary 
to say is, first, that old Nelson (or Nielsen) failed in 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 251 

paying his politic call. The Neptun gunboat of H.M. 
the King of the Netherlands, commanded by an out- 
raged and infuriated lieutenant, left the cove at an 
unexpectedly early hour. When Freya's father came 
down to the shore, after seeing his precious crop of 
tobacco spread out properly in the sun, she was already 
steaming round the point. Old Nelson regretted the 
circumstance for many days. 

" Now, I don't know in what disposition the man 
went away,'' he lamented to his hard daughter. He 
was amazed at her hardness. He was almost fright- 
ened by her indifference. 

Next, it must be recorded that the same day the 
gunboat Neptun, steering east, passed the brig Bonito 
becalmed in sight of Carimata, with her head to the 
eastward, too. Her captain, Jasper Allen, giving him- 
self up consciously to a tender, possessive reverie of his 
Freya, did not get out of his long chair on the poop to 
look at the Neptun which passed so close that the 
smoke belching out suddenly from her short black 
funnel rolled between the masts of the Bonito, obscuring 
for a moment the sunlit whiteness of her sails, con- 
secrated to the service of love. Jasper did not even 
turn his head for a glance. But Heemskirk, on the 
bridge, had gazed long and earnestly at the brig from 
the distance, gripping hard the brass rail in front of 
him, till, th^ two ships closing, he lost all confidence in 
himself, and retreating to the chartroom, pulled the 
door to with a crash. There, his brows knitted, his 
mouth drawn on one side in sardonic meditation, he • 



252 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

sat through many still hours — a sort of Prometheus in 
the bonds of unholy desire, having his very vitals torn 
by the beak and claws of humiliated passion. 

That species of fowl is not to be shooed off as easily 
as a chicken. Fooled, cheated, deceived, led on, out- 
raged, mocked at — beak and claws ! A sinister bird ! 
The lieutenant had no mind to become the talk of the 
Archipelago, as the naval officer who had had his face 
slapped by a girl. Was it possible that she really 
loved that rascally trader? He tried not to think^ 
but, worse than thoughts, definite impressions beset 
him in his retreat. He saw her — a vision plain, close 
to, detailed, plastic, coloured, lighted up — he saw her 
hanging round the neck of that fellow. And he shut 
his eyes, only to discover that this was no remedy. 
Then a piano began to play near by, very plainly ; and 
he put his fingers to his ears with no better effect. It 
was not to be borne — not in solitude. He bolted out 
of the chartroom, and talked of indifferent things some- 
what wildly with the officer of the watch on the bridge, 
to the mocking accompaniment of a ghostly piano. 

The last thing to be recorded is that Lieutenant 
Heemskirk instead of pursuing his course towards 
Temate, where he was expected, went out of his way 
to call at Makassar, where no one was looking for his 
arrival. Once there, he gave certain explanations and 
laid a certain proposal before the governor:, or some 
other authority, and obtained permission to do what 
he thought fit in these matters. Thereupon the 
Neptun, giving up Ternate altogether, steamed north 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 253 

in view of the mountainous coast of Celebes, and then 
crossing the broad straits took up her station on the 
low coast of virgin forests, inviolate and mute, in 
waters phosphorescent at night, deep blue in daytime 
with gleaming green patches over the submerged reefs. 
For days the Neptun could be seen moving smoothly 
up and down the sombre face of the shore, or hanging 
about with a watchful air near the silvery breaks of 
broad estuaries, under the great luminous sky never 
softened, never veiled, and flooding the earth with the 
everlasting sunshine of the tropics — that sunshine 
which, in its unbroken splendour, oppresses the soul 
with an inexpressible melancholy more intimate, more 
penetrating, more profound than the grey sadness of 
the northern mists. 

The trading brig Bonito appeared gliding round a 
sombre forest-clad point of land on the silvery estuary 
of a great river. The breath of air that gave her 
motion would not have fluttered the flame of a torch. 
She stole out into the open from behind a veil of un- 
stirring leaves, mysteriously silent, ghostly white, and 
solemnly stealthy in her imperceptible progress; and 
Jasper, his elbow in the main rigging, and his head 
leaning against his hand, thought of Freya. Every- 
thing in the world reminded him of her. The beauty 
of the loved woman exists in the beauties of Nature. 
The swelling outlines of the hills, the curves of a coast, 
the free sinuosities of a river are less suave than the 
harmonious lines of her body, and when she moves, 



254 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

gliding lightly, the grace of her progress suggests the 
power of occult forces which rule the fascinating as- 
pects of the visible world. 

Dependent on things as all men are, Jasper loved his 
vessel — the house of his dreams. He lent to her some- 
thing of Freya's soul. Her deck was the foothold of 
their love. The possession of his brig appeased his 
passion in a soothing certitude of happiness already 
conquered. 

The full moon was some way up, perfect and serene) 
floating in air as calm and limpid as the glance of 
Freya's eyes. There was not a sound in the brig. 

" Here she shall stand, by my side, on evenings like 
this," he thought, with rapture. 

And it was at that moment, in this peace, in this 
serenity, under the full, benign gaze of the moon pro- 
pitious to lovers, on a sea without a wrinkle, under a 
sky without a cloud, as if all Nature had assumed its 
most clement mood in a spirit of mockery, that the 
gunboat Neptun, detaching herself from the dark coast 
under which she had been lying invisible, steamed out 
to intercept the trading brig Bonito standing out to 
sea. 

Directly the gunboat had been made out emerging 
from her ambush, Schultz, of the fascinating voice, had 
given signs of strange agitation. All that day, ever 
since leaving the Malay town up the river, he had 
shown a haggard face, going about his duties like a 
man with something weighing on his mind. Jasper 
had noticed it, but the mate, turning away, as though 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 255 

he had not liked being looked at, had muttered shame- 
facedly of a headache and a touch of fever. He must 
have had it very badly when, dodging behind his cap- 
tain, he wondered aloud: "What can that fellow 
want with us ?''•.. A naked man standing in a 
freezing blast and trying not to shiver could not have 
spoken with a more harshly uncertain intonation. But 
it might have been fever — a cold fit. 

" He wants to make himself disagreeable, simply," 
said Jasper, with perfect good humour. " He has tried 
it on me before. However, we shall soon see." 

And, indeed, before long the two vessels lay abreast 
within easy hail. The brig, with her fine lines and her 
white sails, looked vaporous and sylph-like in the 
moonlight. The gunboat, short, squat, with her 
stumpy dark spars naked like dead trees, raised against 
the luminous sky of that resplendent night, threw a 
heavy shadow on the lane of water between the two 
ships. 

Ereya haunted them both like an ubiquitous spirit, 
and as if she were the only woman in the world, 
Jasper remembered her earnest recommendation to be 
guarded and cautious in all his acts and words while 
he was away from her. In this quite unforeseen en- 
counter he felt on his ear the very breath of these 
hurried admonitions customary to the last moment of 
their partings, heard the half -jesting final whisper of 
the " Mind, kid, I'd never forgive you ! " with a quick 
pressure on his arm, which he answered by a quiet, 
confident smile. Heemskirk was haunted in another 



256 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

fashion. There were no whispers in it, it was more 
like visions. He saw that girl hanging round the neck 
of a low vagabond — that vagabond, the vagabond who 
had just answered his hail. He saw her stealing bare- 
footed across a verandah with great, clear, wide-open, 
eager eyes to look at a brig — that brig. If she had 
shrieked, scolded, called names! . . . But she had 
simply triumphed over him. That was alL L€d on 
(he firmly believed it), fooled, deceived, outraged, 
struck, mocked at. . . . Beak and claws! The two 
men, so differently haunted by Freya of the Seven 
Isles, were not equally matched. 

In the intense stillness, as f>i sleep, which had fallen 
upon the two vessels, in a world that itself seemed but 
a delicate dream, a boat pulled by Javanese sailors 
crossing the dark lane of water came alongside the brig. 
The white warrant officer in her, perhaps the gunner, 
climbed aboard. He was a short man, with a rotund 
stomach and a wheezy voice. His immovable fat face 
looked lifeless in the moonlight, and he walked with his 
thick arms hanging away from his body as though he 
had been stuffed. His cunning little eyes glittered like 
bits of mica. He conveyed to Jasper, in broken Eng- 
lish, a request to come on board the Neptun, 

Jasper had not expected anything so unusual. But 
after a short reflection he decided to show neither an- 
noyance, nor even surprise. The river from which 
he had come had been politically disturbed for a couple 
of years, and he was aware that his visits there were 
looked upon with some suspicion. But he did not 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 257 

mind much the displeasure of the authorities, so 
terrifying to old Nelson. He prepared to leave the 
brig, and Schultz followed him to the rail as if to say 
something, but in the end stood by in silence. Jasper 
getting over the side, noticed his ghastly face. The 
eyes of the man who had found salvation in the brig 
from the effects of his peculiar psychology looked at 
him with a dumb, beseeching expression. 

" What's the matter ? '^ Jasper asked. 

" I wonder how this will end ? " said he of the beauti- 
ful voice, which had even fascinated the steady Freya 
herself. But where waa its charming timbre now? 
These words had sounded like a raven's croak. 

" You are ill," said Jasper positively. 

" I wish I were dead ! " was the startling statement 
uttered by Schultz talking to himself in the extremity 
of some mysterious trouble. Jasper gave him a keen 
glance, but this was not the time to investigate the 
morbid outbreak of a feverish man. He did not look 
as though he were actually delirious, and that for the 
moment must suffice. Schultz made a dart forward. 

" That fellow means harm ! " he said desperately. 
" He means harm to you, Captain Allen. I feel it, 
and I '' 

He choked with inexplicable emotion. 

" All right, Schultz. I won't give him an opening." 
Jasper cut him short and svnmg himself into the boat. 

On board the Neptun Heemskirk, standing straddle- 
legs in the flood of moonlight, his inky shadow falling 
right across the quarter-deck, made no sign at his ap- 



258 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA i 

i 

proach, but secretly he felt something like the heave 
of the sea in his chest at the sight of that man. Jasper 
waited before him in silence. 

Brought face to face in direct personal contact, | 
they fell at once into the manner of their casual meet- ^ 
ings in old Nelson's bungalow. They ignored each ( 
other's existence — Heemskirk moodily ; Jasper, with a • 
perfectly colourless quietness. ^ 

" What's going on in that river you've just come out | 
of?" asked the lieutenant straight away. i 

" I know nothing of the troubles, if you mean that," ^ 
Jasper answered. " I've landed there half a cargo of I 
rice, for which I got nothing in exchange, and went j 
away. There's no trade there now, but \hej would ' 
have been starving in another week if I hadn't turned 
up." 

" Meddling ! English meddling I And suppose the 
rascals don't deserve anything better than to starve, 
eh?" 

" There are women and children there, you know," 
observed Jasper, in his even tone. 1 

" Oh, yes ! When an Englishman talks of women | 
and children, you may be sure there's something fishy ? 
about the business. Your doings will have to be in- 
vestigated." 

They spoke in turn, as though they had been dia- I 
embodied spirits — mere voices in empty air ; for they I 
looked at each other as if there had been nothing there, 
or, at most, with as much recognition as one gives to ' 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 259 

an inanimate object, and no more. But now a silence 
felL Heemskirk had thought, all at once: " She will 
tell him all about it She will tell him while she hangs 
round his neck laughing." And the sudden desire to 
annihilate Jasper on the spot almost deprived him of 
his senses by its vehemence. He lost the power of 
speech, of vision. For a moment he absolutely couldn't 
see Jasper. But he heard him inquiring, as of the 
world at large : 

" Am I, then, to conclude that the brig is detained ? " 

Heemskirk made a recovery in a flush of malignant 
satisfaction. 

^^ She is. I am going to take her to Makassar in 
tow." 

"The courts will have to decide on the legality of 
this," said Jasper, aware that the matter was becoming 
serious, but with assumed indifference. 

" Oh, yes, the courts ! Certainly. And as to you, 
I shall keep you on board here." 

Jasper's dismay at being parted from his ship was 
betrayed by a stony immobility. It lasted but an in- 
Ertant. Then he turned away and hailed the brig. Mr. 
Schultz answered: 

" Yes, sir." 

*^ Otet ready to receive a tow-rope from the gunboat ! 
We are going to be taken to Makassar." 

" Good God I What's that for, sir ? " came an anx- 
ious cry faintly. 

Eindness, I suppose," Jasper, ironical, shouted 



u 



260 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

with great deliberation. "We might have been — be- 
calmed in here — for days. And hospitality. I am 
invited to stay — on board here." 

The answer to this information was a loud ejacula- 
tion of distress. Jasper thought anxiously : " Why, 
the fellow's nerve's gone to pieces ; '' and with an 
awkward uneasiness of a new sort, looked intently at 
the brig. The thought that he was parted from her — 
for the first time since they came together — shook the 
apparently careless fortitude of his character" to its very 
foundations, which were deep. All that time neither 
Heemskirk nor even his inky shadow had stirred in 
the least. 

" I am going to send a boat's crew and an officer 
on board your vessel," he announced to no one in 
particular. Jasper, tearing himself away from the 
absorbed contemplation of the brig, turned round, and, 
without passion, almost without expression in his voice, 
entered his protest against the whole of the proceedings. 
What he was thinking of was the delay. He counted 
the days. Makassar was actually on his way; and to 
be towed there really saved time. On the other hand, 
there would be some vexing formalities to go through. 
But the thing was too absurd. " The beetle's gone 
mad," he thought. " I'll be released at once. And if 
not, Mesman must enter into a bond for me." Mesman 
was a Dutch merchant with whom Jasper had had 
many dealings, a considerable person in Makassar. 

" You protest ? H'm ! " Heemskirk muttered, and 
for a little longer remained motionless, his 1^ planted 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 261 

well part, and his head lowered as though he were 
studying his own comical, deeply-split shadow. Then 
he made a sign to the rotund gunner, who had kept at 
hand, motionless, like a vilely-stuffed specimen of a 
fat man, with a lifeless face and glittering little eyes. 
The fellow approached, and stood at attention. 

" You will board the brig with a boat's crew 1 " 

" Ya, mynherr ! " 

" You will have one of your men to steer her all 
the time," went on Heemskirk, giving his orders in 
English, apparently for Jasper's edification. " You 
hear ? " 

" Ya, mynherr." 

"You will remain on deck and in charge all the 
time." 

" Ya, mynherr." 

Jasper felt as if, together with the command of the 
brig, his very heart were being taken out of his breast. 
Heemskirk asked, with a change of tone: 

" What weapons have you on board ? " 

At one time all the ships trading in the China Seas 
had a licence to carry a certain quantity of firearms for 
purposes of defence. Jasper answered: 

" Eighteen rifles with their bayonets, which were on 
board when I bought her, four years ago. They have 
been declared." 

" Where are they kept ? " 

" Fore-cabin. Mate has the key." 

"You will take possession of them," said Heems- 
kirk to the gunner. 



262 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 



H 



Ya, mynherr." 

" What is this for ? What do you mean to imply ? *' 
cried out Jasper; then bit his lip. " It's monstrous I ** 
he muttered, 

Heemskirk raised for a moment a heavy, as if suffer- 
ing, glance. 

" You may go," he said to his gunner. The fat man 
saluted, and departed. 

During the next thirty hours the steady towing was 
interrupted once. At a signal from the brig, made by 
waving a flag on the forecastle, the gunboat was 
stopped. The badly-stuffed specimen of a warrant- 
officer, getting into his boat, arrived on board the 
Neptun and hurried straight into his ccHnmander's 
cabin, his excitement at something he had to com- 
municate being betrayed by the blinking of his small 
eyes. These two were closeted together for some time, 
while Jasper at the taffrail tried to make out if any- 
thing out of the common had occurred on board the brig. 
But nothing seemed to be amiss on board. However, 
he kept a look-out for the gunner; and, though he had 
avoided speaking to anybody since he had finished 
with Heemskirk, he stopped that man when he came 
out on deck again to ask how his mate was. 

" He was feeling not very well when I left," he ex- 
plained. 

The fat warrant-officer, holding himself as though 
the effort of carrying his big stomach in front of him 
demanded a rigid carriage, understood with difficulty. 
Not a single one of his features showed the slightest 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 263 

animation, but his little eyes blinked rapidly at last. 

" Oh, ya ! The mate. Ya, ya ! He is very well. 
But, mein Gott, he is one very funny man ! " 

Jasper could get no explanation of that remark, be- 
cause the Dutchman got into the boat hurriedly, and 
went back on board the brig. But he consoled him- 
self with the thought that very soon all this unpleas- 
ant and rather absurd experience would be over. The 
roadstead of Makassar was in sight already. Heems- 
kirk passed by him going on the bridge. For the first 
time the lieutenant looked at Jasper with marked in- 
tention; and the strange roll of his eyes was so funny 
-^it had been long agreed by Jasper and Freya that 
the lieutenant was funny — so ecstatically gratified, 
as though he were rolling a tasty morsel on his tongue, 
that Jasper could not help a broad smile. And then 
he turned to his brig again. 

To see her, his cherished possession, animated by 
something of his Freya's soul, the only foothold of two 
Uves on the wide earth, the security of his passion, the 
companion of adventure, the power to snatch the calm, 
adorable Freya to his breast, and carry her off to the 
end of the world ; to see this beautiful thing embodying 
worthily his pride' and his love, to see her captive at 
the end of a tow-rope was not indeed a pleasant ex- 
perience. It had something nightmarish in it, as, for 
instance, the dream of a wild sea-bird loaded with 
chains. 

Yet what else could he want to look at ? Her beauty 
would sometimes come to his heart with the force of 



264 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

a spell, so that he would forget where he was. And, 
besides, that sense of superiority which the certitude 
of being loved gives to a young man, that illusion of 
being set above the Fates by a tender look in a woman's 
eyes, helped him, the first shock over, to go through 
these experiences with an amused self-confidence. Por 
what evil could touch the elect of Freya ? 

It was now afternoon, the sun being behind the two 
vessels as they headed for the harbour. " The beetle's 
little joke shall soon be over," thought Jasper, without 
any great animosity. As a seaman well acquainted 
with that part of the world, a casual glance was enough 
to tell him what was being done. " Hallo," he thought. 
" he is going through Spermonde Passage. We shall 
be rounding Tamissa reef presently." And again he 
returned to the contemplation of his brig, that main- 
stay of his material and emotional existence which 
would be soon in his hands again. On a sea, calm like 
a millpond, a heavy smooth ripple undulated and 
streamed away from her bows, for the powerful Neptun 
was towing at great speed, as if for a wager. The 
Dutch gunner appeared on the forecastle of the Bonito, 
and with him a couple of men. They stood looking at 
the coast, and Jasper lost himself in a loverlike trance. 

The deep-toned blast of the gunboat's steam-whistle 
made him shudder by its unexpectedness. Slowly he 
looked about Swift as lightning he leaped from where 
he stood, bounding forward along the deck. 

" You will be on Tamissa reef ! " he yelled. 

High up on the bridge Heemskirk looked back over 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 265 

his shoulder heavily; two seamen were spinning the 
wheel round, and the Neptun was already swinging 
rapidly away from the edge of the pale water over the 
danger. Ha! Just in time. Jasper turned about in- 
stantly to watch his brig; and, even before he realised 
that — in obedience, it appears, to Heemskirk's or- 
ders given beforehand to the gunner — the tow-rope 
had been let go at the blast of the whistle, before he 
had time to cry out or to move a limb, he saw her 
cast adrift and shooting across the gunboat's stem 
with the impetus of her speed. He followed her fine, 
gliding form with eyes growing big with incredulity, 
wild with horror. The cries on board of her came to 
him only as a dreadful and confused murmur through 
the loud thumping of blood" in his ears, while she held 
on. She ran upright in a terrible display of her gift 
of speed, with an incomparable air of life and grace. 
She ran on till the smooth level of water in front of 
her bows seemed to sink down suddenlv as if sucked 
.w.j; and, wi«. . trange. video, .ren,;, of her Maa^ 
heads she stopped, inclined her lofty spars a little, and 
lay still. She lay still on the reef, while the Neptun, 
fetching a wide circle, continued at full speed up 
Spermonde Passage, heading for the town. She lay 
still, perfectly still, with something ill-omened and un- 
natural in her attitude. In an instant the subtle 
melancholy of things touched by decay had fallen on 
her in the sunshine ; she was but a speck in the brilliant 
emptiness of space, already lonely, already desolate. 
" Hold him ! " yelled a voice from the bridge. 



266 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

Jasper had started to run to his brig with a headlong 
impulse, as a man dashes forward to pull away with 
his hands a living, breathing, loved creature from the 
brink of destruction. " Hold him I Stick to him I " 
vociferated the lieutenant at the top of the bridge- 
ladder, while Jasper struggled madly without a word, 
only his head emerging from the heaving crowd of the 
Neptun*s seamen, who had flung themselves upon him 
obediently, " Hold I would not have that fel- 
low drown himself for anything now I " 

Jasper ceased struggling. 

One by one they let go of him ; they fell back gradu- 
ally farther and farther, in attentive silence, leaving 
him standing unsupported in a widened, clear space> 
as if to give him plenty of room to fall after the strug- 
gle. He did not even sway perceptibly. Half an 
hour later, when the Neptun anchored in front of the 
town, he had not stirred yet, had moved neither head 
nor limb as much as a hair's breadth. Directly the 
rumble of the gunboat's cable had ceased, Heemskirk 
came down heavily from the bridge. 

" Call a sampan," he said, in a gloomy tone, as he 
passed the sentry at the gangway, and then moved on 
slowly towards the spot where Jasper, the object of 
many awed glances, stood looking at the deck, as if 
lost in a brown study. Heemskirk came up close, and 
stared at him thoughtfully, with his fingers over his 
lips. Here he was, the favoured vagabond, the only 
man to whom that infernal girl was likely to tell the 
story. But he would not find it funny. The story how 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 267 

Lieatenant Heemskirk No, he would not laugh 

at it. He looked as though he would never laugh at 
anything in his Ufe. 

Suddenly Jasper looked up. His eyes, without any 
other expression but bewilderment, met those of Heems- 
kirk, observant and sombre, 

" Gone on the reef I '^ he said, in a low, astounded 
tone. " On — the — reef ! '^ he repeated still lower, 
and as if attending inwardly to the birth of some awful 
and amazing sensation. 

" On the very top of high-water, spring tides," 
Heemskirk struck in, with a vindictive, exulting vio- 
lence which flashed and expired. He paused, as if 
weary, fixing upon Jasper his arrogant eyes, over which 
secret disenchantment, the unavoidable shadow of all 
passion, seemed to pass like a saddening cloud. '^ On 
the very top," he repeated, rousing himself in fierce 
reaction to snatch his laced cap off his head with a 
horizontal, derisive flourish towards the gangway. 
" And now you may go ashore to the courts, you 
damned Englishman I " he said. 

VI 

The affair of the brig Bonito was bound to cause a 
sensation in Makassar, the prettiest, and perhaps the 
cleanest-looking of all the towns in the Islands; which 
however knows few occasions for excitement. The 
*^ front," with its special population, was soon aware 
that something had happened. A steamer towing a 



268 ^TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

sailing vessel had been observed far out to sea for some 
time, and when the steamer came in alone, leaving the 
other outside, attention was aroused. Why was that? 
Her masts only could be seen — with furled sails 

— remaining in the same place to the southward. And 
soon the rumour ran all along the crowded seashore 
street that there was a ship on Tamissa reef. That 
crowd interpreted the appearance correctly. Its cause 
was beyond their penetration, for who could associate 
a girl nine hundred miles away with the stranding of a 
ship on Tamissa reef, or look for the remote filiation 
of that event in the psychology of at least three people, 
even if one of them. Lieutenant Heemskirk, was at 
that very moment passing amongst them on his way 
to make his verbal report? 

No ; the minds on the " front '^ were not competent 
for that sort of investigation, but many hands there 

— brown hands, yellow hands, white hands — were 
raised to shade the eyes gazing out to sea. The 
rumour spread quickly. Chinese shopkeepers came to 
their doors, more than one white merchant, even, rose 
from his desk to go to the window. After all, a ship 
on Tamissa was not an everyday occurrence. And 
presently the rumour took a more definite shape. An 
English trader — detained on suspicion at sea by the 
Neptun — Heemskirk was towing him in to test a case, 
and by some strange accident 

Later on the name came out. " The Bonito — what ! 
Impossible! Yes — yes, the Bonito. Look! You 
can see from here; only two masts. It's a brig. 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 269 

Didn't think that man would ever let himself be 
caught. Heemskirk's pretty smart, too. They say 
she's fitted out in her cabin like a gentleman's yacht. 
That Allen is a sort of gentleman too. An extravagant 
beggar." 

A young man entered smartly Messrs. Mesman 
Brothers' office on the "front,"* bubbling with some 
further information. 

"Oh, yes; that's the Bonito for certain! But you 
don't know the story I've heard just now. The fellow 
must have been feeding that river with firearms for 
the last year or two. Well, it seems he has grown so 
reckless from long impunity that he has actually dared 
to sell the very ship's rifies this time. It's a fact. The 
rifles are not on board. What impudence ! Only, he 
didn't know that there was one of our warships on the 
coast. But those Englishmen are so impudent that 
perhaps he thought that nothing would be done to him 
for it. Our courts do let off these fellows too often, 
on some miserable excuse or other. But, at any rate, 
there's an end of the famous Bonito. I have just heard 
in the harbour-office that she must have gone on at the 
very top of high-water ; and she is in ballast, too. IsTo 
human power, they think, can move her from where 
she is. I only hope it is so. It would be fine to have 
the notorious Bonito stuck up there as a warning to 
others." 

Mr. J. Mesman, a colonial-bom Dutchman, a kind, 
paternal old fellow, with a clean-shaven, quiet, hand- 
some face, and a head of fine iron-grey hair curling a 



270 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

little on his collar, did not say a word in defence of 
Jasper and the Bonito. He rose from his arm-chair 
suddenly. His face was visibly troubled. It had so 
happened that once, from a business talk of ways and 
means, island trade, money matters, and so on, Jasper 
had been led to open himself to him on the subject of 
Freya; and the excellent man, who had known old 
Nelson years before and even remembered something 
of Freya, was much astonished and amused by the un- 
folding of the tale. 

"Well, well, well! Nelson 1 Yes; of course. A 
very honest sort of man. And a little child with very 
fair hair. Oh, yes! I have a distinct recollection. 
And so she has grown into such a fine girl, so very 

determined, so very ^^ And he laughed almost 

boisterously. "Mind, when you have happily eloped 
with your future wife, Captain Allen, you must come 
along this way, and we shall welcome her here. A 
little fair-headed child! I remember. I remember." 

It was that knowledge which had brought trouble to 
his face at the first news of the wreck. He took up 
his hat. 

" Where are you going, Mr. Mesman ? '* 

" I am going to look for Allen. I think he must be 
ashore. Does anybody know ? " 

No one of those present knew. And Mr. Mesman 
went out on the " front " to make inquiries. 

The other part of the town, the part near the church 
and the fort, got its information in another way. The 
first thing disclosed to it was Jasper himself, walking 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 271 

rapidly, as though he were pursued. And, as a matter 
of fact, a Chinaman, obviously a sampan man, was 
following him at the same headlong pace. Suddenly, 
while passing Orange House, Jasper swerved and went 
in, or, rather, rushed in, startling Gomez, the hotel 
clerk, very much. But a Chinaman beginning to make 
an unseemly noise at the door claimed the immediate 
attention of Gomez. His grievance was that the white 
man whom he had brought on shore from the gunboat 
had not paid him his boat-fare. He had pursued him 
so far, asking for it all the way. But the white man 
had taken no notice whatever of his just claim. Gomez 
satisfied the coolie with a few coppers, and then went 
to look for Jasper, whom he knew very welL He 
found him standing stiffly by a little round table. At 
the other end of the verandah a few men sitting there 
had stopped talking, and were looking at him in silence. 
Two billiard-players, with cues in their hands, had 
come to the door of the billiard-room and stared, too. 

On Qomez coming up to him, Jasper raised one hand 
to point at his own throat. Gomez noted the some- 
what soiled state of his white clothes, then took one 
look at his face, and fled away to order the drink for 
which Jasper seemed to be asking. 

Where he wanted to go — for what purpose — where 
he, perhaps, only imagined himself to be going, when 
a sudden impulse or the sight of a familiar place had 
made him turn into Orange House — it is impossible to 
say. He was steadying himself lightly with the tips of 
his fingers on the little table. There were on that 



272 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

verandah two men whom he knew well personally, but 
his gaze roaming incessantly as though he were looking 
for a way of escape, passed and repassed over them 
without a sign of recognition. They, on their side, 
looking at him, doubted the evidence of their own eyes. 
It was not that his face was distorted. On the contrary, 
it was still, it was set. But its expression, somehow, 
was unrecognisable. Can that be he? they wondered 
with awe. 

In his head there was a wild chaos of clear thoughts. 
Perfectly clear. It was this clearness which was so 
terrible in conjunction with the utter inability to lay 
hold of any single one of them all. He was saying to 
himself, or to them : " Steady, steady.^' A China boy 
appeared before him with a glass on a tray. He poured 
the drink down his throat, and rushed out. His dis- 
appearance removed the spell of wonder from the be- 
holders. One of the men jumped up and moved 
quickly to that side of the verandah from which almost 
the whole of the roadstead could be seen. At the very 
moment when Jasper, issuing from the door of the 
Orange House, was passing under him in the street 
below, he cried to the others excitedly: 

" That was Allen right enough I But where is his 
brig ? " 

Jasper heard these words with extraordinary loud- 
ness. The heavens rang with them, as if calling him 
to account ; for those were the very words Freya would 
have to use. It was an annihilating question ; it struck 
his consciousness like a thunderbolt and brought a 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 273 

sudden night upon the chaos of his thoughts even as 
he walked. He did not check his pace. He went on 
in the darkness for another three strides, and then 
feU. 

The good Mesman had to push on as far as the 
hospital before he found him. The doctor there talked 
of a slight heatstroke. Nothing very much. Out in 
three days, . . • It must be admitted that the doctor 
was right. In three days, Jasper Allen came out of 
the hospital and became visible to the town — very 
visible indeed — and remained so for quite a long time; 
long enough to become almost one of the sights of the 
place ; long enough to become disregarded at last ; long 
enough for the tale of his haunting visibility to be re- 
membered in the islands to this day. 

The talk on the " front " and Jasper's appearance in 
the Orange House stand at the beginning of the fa- 
mous Bonito case, and give a view of its two aspects 
— the practical and the psychological. The case for 
the courts and the case for compassion; that last ter- 
ribly evident and yet obscure. 

It has, you must understand, remained obscure even 
for that friend of mine who wrote me the letter men- 
tioned in the very first lines of this narrative. He 
was one of those in Mr. Mesman's office, and accom- 
panied that gentleman in his search for Jasper. His 
letter described to me the two aspects and some of the 
episodes of the case. Heemskirk's attitude was that of 
deep thankfulness for not having lost his own ship, and 
that was all. Haze over the land was his explanation 



274 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

of having got so close to Tamissa reef. He saved his 
ship, and for the rest he did not care. As to the fat 
gunner, he deposed simply that he thought at the time 
that he was acting for the best by letting go the tow- 
rope, but admitted that he was greatly confused by 
the suddenness of the emergency. 

As a matter of fact, he had acted on very precise 
instructions from Heemskirk, to whom through sev- 
eral years' service together in the East he had become 
a sort of devoted henchman. What was most amazing 
in the detention of the Bonito was his story how, pro- 
ceeding to take possession of the firearms as ordered, 
he discovered that there were no firearms on board. 
All he found in the fore-cabin was an empty rack for 
the proper number of eighteen rifles, but of the rifles 
themselves never a single one anywhere in the ship. 
The mate of the brig, who looked rather ill and behaved 
excitedly, as though he were perhaps a lunatic, wanted 
him to believe that Captain Allen knew nothing of 
this; that it was he, the mate, who had recently sold 
these rifles in the dead of night to a certain person up 
the river. In proof of this story he produced a bag of 
silver dollars and pressed it on his, the gunner's, 
acceptance. Then, suddenly flinging it down on the 
deck, he beat his own head with both his fists and 
started heaping shocking curses upon his own soul for 
an ungrateful wretch not fit to live. 

All this the gunner reported at once to his com- 
manding officer. 

What Heemskirk intended by taking upon himself to 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 275 

detain the Bonito it is difficult to say, except that he 
meant to bring some trouble into the life of the man 
favoured by Ereya. He had been looking at Jasper 
with a desire to strike that man of kisses and embraces 
to the earth. The question was: How could he do it 
without giving himself away? But the report of the 
gunner created a serious case enough. Yet Allen had 
friends — and who could tell whether he wouldn't some- 
how succeed in wriggling out of it ? The idea of simply 
towing the brig so much compromised on to the reef 
came to him while he was listening to the fat gunner 
in his cabin. There was but little risk of being dis- 
approved now. And it should be made to appear an 
accident. 

Going out on deck he had gloated upon his un- 
conscious victim with such a sinister roll of his eyes, 
such a queerly pursed mouth, that Jasper could not 
help smiling. And the lieutenant had gone on the 
bridge, saying to himself: 

" You wait I I shall spoil the taste of those sweet 
kisses for you. When you hear of Lieutenant Heems- 
kirk in the future that name won't bring a smile on 
your lips, I swear. You are delivered into my hands." 

And this possibility had come about without any 
planning, one could almost say naturally, as if events 
had mysteriously shaped themselves to fit the purposes 
of a dark passion. The most astute scheming could 
not have served Heemskirk better. It was given to 
him to taste a transcendental, an incredible perfection 
of vengeance; to strike a deadly blow into that hated 



276 'TWIXT LAIH) AND SEA 

person^s heart, and to watch him afterwards walking 
about with the dagger in his breast. 

For that is what the state of Jasper amounted to. 
He moved, acted, weary-eyed, keen-faced, lank and 
restless, with brusque movements and fierce gestures; 
he talked incessantly in a frenzied and fatigued voice, 
but within himself he knew that nothing would ever 
give him bade the brig, just as nothing can heal a 
pierced heart. His soul, kept quiet in the stress of 
love by the unflinching Freya's influence, was like a 
still but overwound string. The shock had started 
it vibrating, and the string had snapped. He had 
waited for two years in a perfectly intoxicated con- 
fidence for a day that now would never come to a 
man disarmed for life by the loss of the brig, and, it 
seemed to him, made unfit for love to which he had no 
foothold to offer. 

Day after day he would traverse the length of the 
town, follow the coast, and, reaching the point of land 
opposite that part of the reef on which his brig lay 
stranded, look steadily across the water at her beloved 
form, once the home of an exulting hope, and now, in 
her inclined, desolated immobility, towering above the 
lonely sea-horizon, a symbol of despair. 

The crew had left her in due course in her own boats 
which directly they reached the town were sequestrated 
by the harbour authorities. The vessel, too, was 
sequestrated pending proceedings; but these same au- 
thorities did not take the trouble to set a guard on 
board. For, indeed, what could move her from there } 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 277 

Nothing, unless a miracle ; nothing, unless Jasper's 
eyes, fastened on her tensely for hours together, as 
though he hoped by the mere power of vision to draw 
her to his breast. 

All this story, read in my friend's very chatty letter, 
dismayed me not a little. But it was really appal- 
ling to read his relation of how Schultz, the mate, 
went about everywhere affirming with desperate per- 
tinacity that it> was he alone who had sold the rifles; 
" I stole them," he protested. Of course, no one would 
believe him. My friend himself did not believe him, 
though he, of course, admired this self-sacrifice. But a 
good many people thought it was going too far to make 
oneself out a thief for the sake of a friend. Only, it 
was such an obvious lie, too, that it did not matter^ 
perhaps. 

I, who, in view of Schultz's psychology, knew how 
true that must be, admit that I was appalled. So this 
was how a perfidious destiny took advantage of a gen- 
erous impulse! And I felt as though I were an ac- 
compUce in this perfidy, since I did to a certain ex- 
tent encourage Jasper. Yet I had warned him as 
well. 

" The man seemed to have gone crazy on this point,'* 
wrote my friend. "He went to Mesman with his 
story. He says that some rascally white man living 
amongst the natives up that river made him drunk with 
some gin one evening, and then jeered at him for never 
having any money. Then he, protesting to us that he 
was an honest man and must be believed, described 



278 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

himself as being a thief whenever he took a drop too 
much^ and told lis that he went on board and passed the 
rifles one by one without the slightest compunction to a 
canoe which came alongside that night, receiving ten 
dollars apiece for them. 

^^Next day he was ill with shame and grief , but 
had not the courage to confess his lapse to his bene- 
factor. When the gunboat stopped the brig he felt 
ready to die with the apprehension of the consequences, 
and would have died happily, if he could have been 
able to bring the rifles back by the sacrifice of his life. 
He said nothing to Jasper, hoping that the brig would 
be released presently. When it turned out otherwise 
and his captain was detained on board the gunboat, 
he was ready to commit suicide from despair; only he 
thought it his duty to live in order to let the truth be 
known. ^ I am an honest man ! I am an honest man I ' 
he repeated, in a voice that brought tears to our eyes. 
'You must believe me when I tell you that I am a 
thief — a vile, low, cunning, sneaking thief as soon as 
IVe had a glass or two. Take me somewhere where I 
may tell the truth on oath.' 

" When we had at last convinced him that his story 
could be of no use to Jasper — for what Dutch court, 
having once got hold of an English trader, would ac- 
cept such an explanation; and, indeed, how, when, 
where could one hope to find proofs of such a tale ? — 
he made as if to tear his hair in handfuls, but, calming 
down, said : ' Good-bye, then, gentlemen,' and went out 
of the room so crushed that he seemed hardly able to 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 279 

put one foot before the other. That very night he com- 
mitted snicide by cutting his throat in the house of a 
half-caste with whom he had been lodging since he came 
ashore from the wreck." 

That throat, I thought with a shudder, which could 
produce the tender, persuasive, manly, but fascinating 
voice which had aroused Jasper's ready compassion and 
had secured Freya's sympathy! Who could ever have 
supposed such an end in store for the impossible, gentle 
Schultz, with his idosyncrasy of naive pilfering, so 
absurdly straightforward that, even in the people who 
had suffered from it, it aroused nothing more than a 
sort of amused exasperation? He was really impos- 
sible. His lot evidently should have been a half- 
starved, mysterious, but by no means tragic existence 
as a mild-eyed, inoffensive beachcomber on the fringe 
of native life. There are occasions when the irony of 
fate, which some people profess to discover in the work- 
ing out of our lives, wears the aspect of crude and sav- 
age jesting. 

I shook my head over the manes of Schultz, and went 
on with my friend's letter. It told me how the brig 
on the reef, looted by the natives from the coast vil- 
lages, acquired gradually the lamentable aspect, the 
grey ghostliness of a wreck ; while Jasper, fading daily 
into a mere shadow of a man, strode brusquely all along 
the " front " with horribly lively eyes and a faint, fixed 
smile on his lips, to spend the day on a lonely spit of 
sand looking eagerly at her, as though he had expected 
some shape on board to rise up and make some sort of 



280 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

sign to him over the decaying bulwarks. The Mesmans 
were taking care of him as far as it was possible. The 
Bonito ease had been referred to Batavia, where no 
doubt it would fade away in a fog of official papers. 
... It was heartrending to read all this. That ac- 
tive and zealous officer, Lieutenant Heemskirk, hie air 
of sullen, darkly-pained self-importance not lightened 
by the approval of his action conveyed to him unoffi- 
cially, had gone on to take up his station in the 
Moluccas. • • • 

Then, at the end of the bulky, kindly-meant epistle, 
dealing with the island news of half a year at least, my 
friend wrote : " A couple of months ago old Nelson 
turned up here, arriving by the mail-boat from Java. 
Came to see Me&man, it seems. A rather mysterious 
visit, and extraordinarily short, after coming all that 
way. He stayed just four days at the Orange House, 
with apparently nothing in particular to do, and then 
caught the south-going steamer for the Straits. I re- 
member people saying at one time that Allen was 
rather sweet on old Nelson's daughter, the girl that 
was brought up by Mrs. Harley and then went to live 
with him at the Seven Isles group. Surely you remem- 
ber old Nelson ^^ 

Eemember old Nelson! Bather I 

The letter went on to inform me further that old 
Nelson, at least, remembered me, since some time after 
his flying visit to Makassar he had written to the Mes- 
mans asking for my address in London. 

That old Nelson (or Nielsen), the note of whose 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 281 

personality was a profound, echoless irresponsiveness 
to everything around him, should wish to write, or find 
anything to write about to anybody, was in itself a 
cause for no small wonder. And to me, of all people! 
I waited with uneasy impatience for whatever dis- 
closure could come from that naturally benighted in- 
telligence, but my impatience had time to wear out 
before my eyes beheld old Nelson's trembling, pain- 
fully-formed handwriting, senile and childish at the 
same time, on an envelope bearing a penny stamp and 
the postal mark of the Notting Hill office. I delayed 
opening it in order to pay the tribute of astonishment 
due to the event by flinging my hands above my head. 
So he had come home to England, to be definitely 
Nelson; or else was on his way home to Denmark, 
where he would revert for ever to his original Nielsen ! 
But old Nelson (or Nielsen) out of the tropics seemed 
unthinkable. And yet he was there> asking me to 
call 

His address was at a boarding-house in one of those 
Bayswater squares, once of leisure, which nowadays are 
reduced to earning their living. Somebody had rec- 
ommended him there. I started to call on him on one 
of those January days in London, one of those wintry 
days composed of the four devilish elements, cold, wet, 
mud, and grime, combined with a particular stickiness 
of atmosphere that clings like an unclean garment to 
one's very souL Yet on approaching his abode I saw, 
like a flicker far behind the soiled veil of the four ele- 
ments, the wearisome and splendid glitter of a blue 



282 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

sea with the Seven Isletb like minute specks swimming 
in my eye, the high red roof of the bungalow crowning 
the very smallest of them all. This visual reminis- 
cence was profoundly disturbing. I knocked at the 
door with a faltering hand. 

Old Nelson (or Nielsen) got up from the table at 
which he was sitting with a shabby pocket-book full 
of papers before him. He took off his spectacles before 
shaking hands. For a moment neither of us said a 
word; then, noticing me looking round somewhat ex- 
pectantly, he murmured some words, of which I caught 
only " daughter '^ and " Hong Kong," cast his eyes 
down, and sighed. 

His moustache, sticking all ways out, as of yore, was 
quite white now. His old cheeks were softly rounded, 
with some colour in them ; strangely enough, that some- 
thing childlike always noticeable in the general con- 
tour of his physiognomy had become much more 
marked. Like his handwriting, he looked childish and 
senile. He showed his age most in his unintelligently 
furrowed, anxious forehead and in his round, innocent 
eyes, which appeared to me weak and blinking and 
watery; or was it that they were full of tears? . . . 

To discover old Nelson fully informed upon any 
matter whatever was a new experience. And after the 
first awkwardness had worn off he talked freely, with, 
now and then, a question to start him going whenever he 
lapsed into silence, which he would do suddenly, clasp- 
ing his hands on his waistcoat in an attitude which 



FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 283 

would recall to me the east verandah, where he used 
to sit talking quietly and puflBng out his cheeks in what 
seemed now old, very old days. He talked in a rea- 
sonable, somewhat anxious tone. 

'* No, no. We did not know anything for weeks. 
Out of the way like that, we couldn't, of course. No 
mail service to the Seven Isles. But one day I ran 
over to Banka in my big sailing-boat to see whether 
there were any letters, and saw a Dutch paper. But it 
looked only like a bit of marine news: English brig 
Bonito gone ashore outside Makassar roads. That was 
all. I took the paper home with me and showed it to 
her. * I will never forgive him ! ' she cries with her 
old spirit. * My dear,^ I said, * you are a sensible girl. 
The best man may lose a ship. But what about your 
health ? ' I was beginning to be frightened at her 
looks. She would not let me talk even of going to 
Singapore before. But, really, such a sensible girl 
couldn't keep on objecting for ever. * Do what you 
like, papa,' she says. Eather a job, that. Had to 
catch a steamer at sea, but I got her over all right. 
There, doctors, of course. Eever. Anaemia. Put her 
to bed. Two or three women very kind to her. Nat- 
urally in our papers the whole story came out before 
long. She reads it to the end, lying on the couch; 
then hands the newspaper back to me, whispers * Heems- 
kirk,' and goes off into a faint." 

He blinked at me for quite a long time, his eyes 
running full of tears again. 



284 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 

" Ifext day," he began, without any emotion in his 
voice, " she felt stronger, and we had a long talk. 
She told me everything." 

Here old Nelson, with his eyes east down, gave me 
the whole story of the Heemskirk episode in Freya's 
words; then went on in his rather jerky utterance, 
and looking up innocently : 

" * My dear,' I said, ' you have behaved in the main 
like a sensible girl/ * I have been horrid,' she cries, 
* and he is breaking his heart over there/ Well, she 
was too sensible not to see she wasn't in a state to 
travel. But I went. She told me to go. She was 
being looked after very well. Anaemia. Getting bet- 
ter, they said." 

He paused. 

'* You did see him ? " I murmured. 

'* Oh, yes ; I did see him," he started again, talking 
in that reasonable voice as though he were arguing a 
point. " I did see him. I came upon him. Eyes 
sunk an inch into his head; nothing but skin on the 
bones of his face, a skeleton in dirty white clothes. 
That's what he looked like. How Freya . . . But 
she never did — not really. He was sitting there, the 
only live thing for miles along that coast, on a drift- 
log washed up on the shore. They had clipped his hair 
in the hospital, and it had not grown again. He stared, 
holding his chin in his hand, and with nothing on the 
sea between him and the sky but that wreck. When 
I came up to him he just moved his head a bit. ' la 
that you, old man ? ' says he — like that. 



FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 285 

" If you had seen him you would have understood 
at once how impossible it was for Freya to have ever 
loved that man. Well, well. I don't say. She might 
have — something. She was lonely, you know. But 
really to go away with him ! Never 1 Madness. She 
was too sensible ... I began to reproach him gently. 
And by and by he turns on me. ^ Write to you ! What 
about ? Come to her 1 What with ? If I had been a 
man I would have carried her off, but she made a child, 
a happy child, of me. Tell her that the day the only 
thing I had belonging to me in the world perished on 
this reef I discovered that I had no power over her. 
. . . Has she come here with you ? ' he shouts, blazing 
at me suddenly with his hollow eyes. I shook my 
head. Come with me, indeed! Anaemia! ^Aha! 
You see ? Go away, then, old man, and leave me alone 
here with that ghost,' he says, jerking his head at the 
wreck of his brig. 

"Mad! It was getting dusk. I did not care to 
stop any longer all by myself with that man in that 
lonely place. I was not going to tell him of Freya's 
illness. AnsBmia I Wliat was the good ? Mad ! And 
what sort of husband would he have made, anyhow, 
for a sensible girl like Freya? Why, even my little 
property I could not have left them. The Dutch au- 
thorities would never have allowed an Englishman to 
settle there. It was not sold then. My man Mahmat, 
you know, was looking after it for me. Later on I let 
it go for a tenth of its value to a Dutch half-caste. But 
never mind. It was nothing to me then. Yes ; I went 



286 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 

away from him. I caught the return mail-boat. I 
told everything to Freya. * He^s mad/ I said ; * and, 
my dear, the only thing he loved was his brig.* 

" * Perhaps/ she says to herself, looking straight 
away — her eyes were nearly as hollow as his — ^ per- 
haps it is true. Yesl I would never allow him any 
power over me.' " 

Old Nelson paused. I sat fascinated, and feeling a 
little cold in that room with a blazing fire. 

" So you see," he continued, " she never really cared 
for him. Much too sensible. I took her away to 
Hong Kong. Change of climate, they said. Oh, these 
doctors 1 My God! Winter time! There came ten 
days of cold mists and wind and rain. Pneumonia. 
But look here! We talked a lot together. Days and 
evenings. Who else had she? . . . She talked a lot 
to me, my own girl.- Sometimes she would laugh a 
little. Look at me and laugh a little ^" 

I shuddered. He looked up vaguely, with a childish, 
puzzled moodiness. 

" She would say : ' I did not really mean to be a bad 
daughter to you, papa.* And I would say : ' Of course, 
my dear. You could not have meant it.' She would 
lie quiet and then say : ^ I wonder ? * And sometimes, 
* IVe been really a coward,' she would tell me. You 
know, sick people they say things. And so she would 
say too : * I've been conceited, headstrong, capricious. 
I sought my own gratification. I was selfish or afraid.' 
. . . But sick people, you know, they say anything. 
And once, after lying silent almost all day, she said: 



I 



FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 287 

'Yes; perhaps, when the day came I would not have 
gone. Perhaps ! I donH know/ she cried. ' Draw 
the curtain, papa. Shut the sea out. It reproaches me 
with my folly.' " He gasped and paused. 

" So you see,'' he went on in a murmur. " Very ill, 
very ill indeed. Pneumonia. Very sudden." He 
pointed his finger at the carpet, while the thought of 
the poor girl, vanquished in her struggle with three 
men's ahsurdities, and coming at last to douht her own 
self, held me in a very anguish of pity. 

''You see yourself," he began again in a downcast 
manner. " She could not have really . . . She men- 
tioned you several times. Good friend. Sensible man. 
So I wanted to tell you myself — let you know the 
truth. A fellow like that! How could it be? She 
was lonely. And perhaps for a while . • . Mere noth- 
ing. There could never have befen a question of love 
for my Freya — such a sensible girl ^" 

" Man ! " I cried, rising upon him wrathfuUy, " don't 
you see that she died of it ? " 

He got up too. " No 1 no ! " he stammered, as if 
angry. " The doctors ! Pneumonia. Low state. 
The inflammation of the • • • They told me. 
Pneu '' 

He did not finish the word. It ended in a sob. He 
flung his arms out in a gesture of despair, giving up 
his ghastly pretence with a low, heartrending cry: 

" And I thought that she was so sensible I " 

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